The Valley of the End
by SouthSideStory
Summary: There is a place where two legends once fought, a valley that saw their lifeblood spilled. And in Konoha there is a monument, a stone face shaped out of the golden bluff, which honors the champion—the Second Hokage: Uchiha Madara. (AU in which the Uchiha rule Konoha. SasuSaku. NaruHina.)
1. Chapter 1

**PART ONE: REMISSION**

* * *

**Chapter One**

_An unjust peace is better than a just war._

* * *

There is a place where two legends once fought, a valley that saw their lifeblood spilled. Years after both men are dead, statues stand in honor of the victor and his foe. Their effigies face one another in perpetuity, a testament to their rivalry and to the battle that shaped the future of the Leaf. And in Konohagakure there is another monument, a stone face shaped out of the golden bluff, which honors the champion—the Second Hokage: Uchiha Madara.

* * *

Sasuke meets the child who will one day be his wife on a sunny March afternoon. Her name is Masami, and she has large, dark eyes that promise to awaken with the Sharingan. The youngest of six daughters, she is the pride of her family. Beautiful in the way only an Uchiha girl can be, intelligent, already skilled at basic kata, she shows every sign of becoming a talented kunoichi. When her father presents her, he bows before Otousan and says, "We are honored, Hokage-sama."

Masami looks more nervous than honored, but she gives Sasuke a gentle smile. He doesn't return it, because he thinks Otousan wouldn't like it very much if he did.

While their parents talk, Sasuke and Masami play children's shogi. She beats him at first, but he wins the second game. She steals shy glances at him over the board, although she never works up the courage to say anything to him.

Masami has glossy, blue-black hair that falls to the middle of her back, and it catches the sunlight as her father leads her away. Sasuke thinks it's very pretty in the same way that he thinks summer flowers and colorful paintings are nice to look at.

"In a dozen years, that girl will be your bride. Do you understand what that means?" Otousan asks.

"Yes," he says, even though Sasuke only has a vague idea that Masami will sleep in his room and be the mother of his children, however that works.

At night, he hears Nisan arguing with Otousan. Sasuke knows he shouldn't eavesdrop, but he hides outside the door to his father's study anyway, listening.

"He's _five_," Itachi says. "How can you do this?"

"He's the same age your mother was when she and I were matched," Otousan says. "Don't pretend to be so surprised. You know how these things work."

"Yes, I do," Nisan says, voice so quiet that Sasuke has to lean closer to catch his next words. "And it's wrong to breed children like horses."

Otousan makes a sound that Sasuke might think was a laugh, if only he had ever heard his father laugh before. "We are _Uchiha_," he says. "We have a bloodline to keep pure, the world's strongest kekkei genkai to protect. What would you have me do, Itachi?"

"Let him decide. It's his life to live."

"The future of our family rests on Sasuke's shoulders," says their father. "I'm not taking the chance that he chooses wrongly."

He hears footsteps—Itachi walking out on Otousan, no doubt—so he scrambles backward, hurries down the hallway, then up the stairs, to his room on the third floor. Sasuke slips into bed and pretends to be asleep, but when his brother opens the door he says, "I know you're awake, and I know you were listening in."

Sasuke sits up slowly and says, "Sorry, Nisan," without meeting his brother's eyes.

Itachi puts a hand on his shoulder. "It's all right. Do you understand why Otousan and I were arguing?"

He nods. "Because you don't like Masami."

Nisan says, "I like Masami fine. She seems like a sweet girl. I just don't think anyone should be able to make decisions like that for you. Even our father. So I want you to promise me something, Sasuke. Promise you won't let Otousan take away your choices."

Sasuke frowns. For the first time in his young life, someone is telling him that his father doesn't know best, and he isn't sure how to answer. But he can tell this is important to Itachi, even if he doesn't know why, so he says, "I promise."

* * *

The Uchiha rule the village. This is a lesson Sakura's family learned when her father was sent to the front lines of the war. He was an unexceptional ninja who never exceeded the rank of genin, but the Yondaime saw fit to place him in the turbulent Earth Country all the same. Perhaps because Haruno is a new name amongst shinobi, one with little history and less weight, the Hokage deemed him expendable. Kizashi died before his child ever drew breath, and his body, like so many others, was never recovered.

Sakura hates the Uchiha, with their arrogant smiles and their strange eyes. One of them examines her the spring she turns six. A tall, stern-faced shinobi asks her dozens of questions, sends her through an obstacle course, and tests her ability to control and use chakra. She knows that this is the moment that will determine whether she'll be allowed to study the ninja arts, and so Sakura tries her very best. All the while, the examiner takes notes, and at the end of the seven-hour assessment he says to Okaasan, "Your daughter is impressive, especially considering her lackluster lineage. We'll be enrolling her at the Academy as soon as the new term begins."

"But I don't want her to be a shinobi," Okaasan says. "I didn't even want her to take this test."

The examiner scowls. "Whether you like it or not, it's your daughter's duty to serve Konoha if she's able. Besides, every child dreams of becoming a shinobi. Isn't that right, Sakura?"

She nods, because she wants to be a kunoichi more than anything and doesn't understand why her mother would try to stop her.

That evening, after dinner, Okaasan cries and holds her close and says, "I wanted to keep you safe, but I can't even do that. They won't let me."

"It's okay," Sakura says, and she hugs her mother as tightly as she can. "I'll protect me. I'll be the best ninja ever, the first girl Hokage! You'll see."

Okaasan kisses her cheek, sniffs, and says, "I want you to dream, Sakura, but you need to understand that Uchiha become Hokage, Uchiha and no one else. There's only so high you can rise if you aren't from their clan."

Sakura starts at the Academy the next month, and there are two Uchiha children in her year: the Yondaime's second son, Sasuke, and Masami, the girl everyone says he's going to marry someday. Masami seems kind and friendly, but her husband-to-be is conceited, standoffish, and rude.

After her third day of school, Sakura tells Okaasan, "He thinks he's better than everyone else just 'cause his father's the Hokage."

"I'm sure he does," her mother says, "but I don't want you worrying about Sasuke. You just work hard and listen to Iruka-sensei. Okay?"

She nods, and really she tries to do as Okaasan says, but it's difficult. Sasuke is the star of her class, and as much as she wants to dislike him, Sakura can't help but admire how quickly he picks up new jutsu, how every shuriken he throws lands precisely where he means it to. She watches him, at first because she wants to unravel the mystery behind his perfect techniques. But then she finds herself taking note of things that have nothing to do with Sasuke's skills as a ninja, like the cadence of his voice and the way he frowns with his eyebrows as much as his mouth.

She isn't blessed with a famous name or bloodline-limit, but Sakura is determined to prove herself, and over her years at the Academy she works hard to master every task Iruka-sensei sets. On theoretical tests she surpasses all of her classmates, including the Uchihas, but in practical exercises Sasuke still outshines her—outshines everyone. She hears the words _prodigy _and _genius_ attached to his name, and she thinks it's almost as if he was destined to be these things. Bred for it, even.

Everyone knows that the Uchiha never marry outside the clan, and that the children of the most prominent branches of the family are often paired before they become genin. Sometimes Sakura watches Sasuke with Masami and thinks that they'll make a beautiful husband and wife. They look quite alike, with the same black hair and pale skin and dark eyes (just waiting to turn Sharingan red). Like a matched set. Like they were made for each other.

Sakura might not get along with most of the Uchiha, but she can't help but love Masami. Gentle Masami who never lords her privileges over her peers. Who feeds stray cats, no matter how ragged or feral, and is nice to everyone, whether it's shy Hinata or lazy Shikamaru or wild Naruto. By her fourth year at the Academy Masami is her friend, and Sakura wishes they would be grouped together on the same squad. Kunoichi are outnumbered by male ninja two-to-one, however, and so she knows there's no chance that they will be teammates.

Masami invites her to her home on a cool autumn afternoon, and so Sakura has reason to enter the Uchiha compound for the first time. It's enclosed by a concrete wall, twenty feet high if it's an inch. Two shinobi guard the gate, and when Sakura approaches the elder of them calls down to her, "You, with the pink hair, what's your business here?"

"She's my friend," Masami says. "I invited her."

The guard waves Sakura through with the warning, "Be out before curfew."

As if she has any choice. No one outside of the clan is permitted on compound grounds after nine o'clock unless they are on official village business of some kind. Violators spend the night in the brig, no exceptions. Perhaps the police would show leniency to a ten-year-old, but Sakura isn't willing to push her luck.

She's struck by the size and opulence of the houses, the beauty of the people, most with the dark good looks so common to the Uchiha. It's such a different world from the little flat she shares with her mother, just the two of them.

"What's it like to have so much family?" Sakura asks.

Masami smiles. "My big sisters boss me around, and my aunts are always in my business, and you can bet my cousins will tell on me if I get in any trouble. It's crazy, but I still kind of love it anyway." She points to the largest, fanciest house Sakura has seen yet and says, "That's where Sasuke-kun lives, by the way."

"I thought he only had one brother," Sakura says. "Why do they need a place that big?"

Masami shrugs. "Fugaku-sama _is _the Hokage. Don't you think the Hokage should live somewhere nice?"

Sakura thinks _nice _is too modest to describe the grandeur of Sasuke's home, but she keeps this to herself.

As if summoned by their conversation, the Yondaime and his sons are at Masami's. Sasuke's older brother smiles at her and says, "Hello, Sakura," and she wonders how he knows her name. The Hokage frowns at her, but she isn't offended by this because Uchiha Fugaku is always frowning. Sakura lowers her head in a hasty bow and says, "Hokage-sama."

Masami does the same, except her bow is deeper and more graceful. When she straightens, she says to her father, "I invited Sakura-chan to dinner."

"Welcome," Masami's mother says, but there is a tightness at the edges of her mouth, a tension that tells Sakura this is a bad time to be a guest.

She ends up sitting next to Masami and across from Sasuke's older brother, whose name she learns is Itachi. Between the su-zakana and naka-choko courses of the meal, he says, "My little brother tells me you beat him on every exam Iruka gives you. He seems to find it troublesome."

Sasuke scowls, and even though he looks just like his mother, for a moment his expression is so purely Fugaku-sama that Sakura giggles.

"I don't know why you're laughing," Sasuke says. "Test grades aren't going to matter much when we're in the field."

This is a thought Sakura has had herself many times, but it stings to hear it from her rival. "You're just a sore loser," she says.

"Wait till the next time we spar, we'll see who's a loser then."

She doesn't care who's sitting at this table. Hokage or no Hokage, Sakura is on the verge of getting up and clocking Sasuke on his pompous head. She glares at him and he glares right back, and she vows to practice her kata all night if she has to, so that she can finally beat him during training tomorrow.

"Sasuke, you're being rude," Itachi says. There's something like disappointment in his voice. "Apologize to Sakura."

Sasuke sits with his arms crossed over his chest, stubbornly silent.

"I don't want your stupid apology anyway," Sakura says.

"Good, because you're not getting one."

_What an awful boy!_

Masami looks between them, clearly uncomfortable. "Sasuke-kun, please stop."

When he speaks to her, he is cool and indifferent, if not unkind. "Stay out of this, Masami," he says. "It doesn't concern you."

Sakura's temper has always easily gotten the better of her, and when Sasuke speaks so dismissively to her friend she can't help it. She flings her bowl of soup across the table without thinking. It hits him in the chest and soaks his high-collared shirt. For a moment, Sasuke just sits there, wide-eyed, staring at her like he's never seen her before.

Then he hurls his own bowl, and Sakura nearly falls out of her chair dodging it. The porcelain hits the wall behind her and shatters.

"_Stop!_" Fugaku-sama shouts.

Sasuke freezes, his hand wrapped around a teacup, ready to fling it too. He lets go quickly and lowers his head.

Everyone is staring at them: Masami and her parents, grandparents, and sisters, Itachi and Fugaku-sama. Sakura knows she should say "sorry" for starting a food fight, for ruining dinner and chucking soup at the Hokage's son, but she just can't.

The Yondaime stands, walks to the children's end of the table, and says to Sakura, "It's time for you to go home, Haruno." He looks down on her as if she is an annoyance, inconvenient and unwanted.

She blushes, nods. It takes every bit of her self-control to walk out of Masami's house, but as soon as she's through the front door Sakura hurries down the street to the compound gate, then beyond. She runs all the way home.

* * *

Namikaze Naruto will be Hokage someday. He doesn't have the right name or the right eyes, but what he lacks in heritage and dojutsu, he plans to make up for with sheer determination.

So when the class laughs at him for messing up his bunshin, Naruto says, "When I'm the Hokage you guys'll respect me!"

Ino rolls her eyes. "How do you expect to become Hokage when you can't even make a stupid clone?"

"Besides, you're not an Uchiha," Shikamaru says.

Naruto crosses his arms over his chest. "So what? Just 'cause all the Hokages since the First have been Uchiha doesn't mean they have to be forever."

"Enough!" Iruka-sensei shouts. "Get back to work practicing your clones. Especially you, Naruto. Worry less about becoming Hokage and more about your jutsu."

No matter how hard he works, his papers come back with low marks, and when it's time to perform his techniques, Naruto finds that he can't do anything right. That doesn't stop him from trying, though, again and again and again.

"Everyone expected me to be like Otousan or you," Naruto tells his mother. It's the night before his twelfth birthday, and he's troubled by a rare moment of self-doubt. "But I'm not a great ninja like you. There's nothing special about me, and Iruka-sensei says I'll be lucky to graduate."

Okaasan ruffles his untidy hair and says, "I wasn't always such a skilled shinobi, Naruto. When I was your age I was getting into fights and failing tests. I passed my final exam at the Academy by the skin of my teeth, and look at me now. After Tsunade, I'm maybe the best kunoichi in Konoha."

Naruto smiles, wide and bright. "I'm like you, then!"

His mother smiles back, pulls him into a hug. He tries to dodge, but Okaasan catches him in her arms and peppers kisses across his cheeks and forehead.

"C'mon, stop, I'm too old for this," Naruto whines, and he wriggles out of her embrace.

She just laughs and says, "I'm proud of you, no matter what kind of ninja you turn out to be. Okay?"

"Okay," he says, and even if he is too old to be kissed and coddled like a little baby, Naruto feels a bit better for the attention.

The next morning, he wakes to the smell of miso soup and rice porridge, broiled salmon and tamagoyaki. He runs to the kitchen and finds his mother at the stove, cooking, but his father isn't there.

"Where's Otousan?" Naruto asks.

His mother gives him a sad smile. "He was called away for a last-minute mission. I'm sorry, Naruto, but he won't be back for a week or so."

"Oh." He isn't exactly surprised. The Hokage often sends Otousan on missions that take him away from Konoha for days or weeks. Once, when he was supposed to be sleeping, he heard Okaasan say that the Yondaime was afraid of him, afraid of his influence in the village, and that's why he always gives Otousan the longest, most dangerous assignments. To keep him out of Konoha—and perhaps to keep him from ever coming back.

Maybe this should be frightening, but Naruto has too much faith in his father to be scared for him. Namikaze Minato is one of the strongest shinobi in any hidden village, renowned across the great nations for his deadly speed. He's too skilled a ninja to be defeated; he'll come home, same as he always does.

Naruto eats his favorite breakfast with his mother, and before he leaves the house for school, she hugs him and says, "Happy birthday."

Nobody at the Academy knows that he turns twelve today, so he doesn't get any more well wishes. Nobody even talks to him, except to laugh when he makes a mistake. He had hoped that Sakura-chan might notice him, might say "hello" at the very least, but she doesn't. She just completes her math test before everyone else and practices taijutsu with Ino and Masami. _It doesn't matter_, he thinks. _Someday I'll be a great shinobi. Then things will be different._

After he finishes his own math test (last, as usual), he stands next to Sasuke, watches how he throws his shuriken, and tries to copy him.

"Get out of my way, dobe," Sasuke says.

Naruto shoves him just when he goes to throw his next shuriken, and it misses the target entirely. Sasuke steadies himself and shoves Naruto back. Pushes turn to punches, and then they're on the ground, fighting each other. Part of him can't stand the Hokage's son, but more than that Naruto wants Sasuke to recognize him as a rival, and even as the Uchiha blacks his eye, he's smiling. Iruka-sensei breaks it up and tells them to run fifty laps around the Academy.

"Just so you know, you're not being punished for fighting. You're being punished for brawling instead of using taijutsu like you've been taught," says Iruka-sensei.

They race for the first twenty laps, but then both of them are too tired of sprinting to keep it up any longer. By the time they make their final lap, sweat runs down Naruto's face, into his eyes; between his shoulder blades, making his shirt stick to his back. His lungs and his legs are burning, but he pushes harder, runs faster. It doesn't matter though, because Sasuke rounds the east corner of the building—their unspoken finish line—a full five feet ahead of him.

What did he expect, really? Sasuke is the fastest student in his class and no one ever beats him at anything.

"Way to go getting us in trouble," Sasuke says.

"Screw you, teme," Naruto says. "You hit me first."

"You pushed me first, so you started it," Sasuke says. Then he walks off before Naruto can make up a comeback, leaving him alone in the yard outside the Academy. Everyone else has gone home, dismissed for the day. He sits on the lone swing and kicks the ground with his foot. Maybe he'll make some friends once he graduates. _If_ he graduates.

"N-Naruto-kun?"

He looks up and sees Hyuuga Hinata. Somehow he walked right past her without noticing she was there. Her wide, pale eyes are impossible to read, but the rest of her radiates nervousness. She fidgets, bites her bottom lip. "I just wanted to say I hope you had a nice birthday."

Naruto smiles, then says, "Thanks, Hinata-chan!"

She blushes a furious red, stammers something about needing to get home, and hurries away.

She's a little odd, the Hyuuga heiress, but she never laughs at him like his other classmates. He doesn't know if it's because she's too shy or too kind, but he appreciates it all the same.

As he swings, alone again, Naruto wonders how Hinata knew that today was his birthday.

* * *

Sasuke doesn't speak much to Sakura after the incident at Masami's house, and she seems content not to talk to him either. The one he can't shake is Naruto. The Yellow Flash's son always challenges him to fights and tries to upstage him in class, but the dobe is so hopeless at every kind of jutsu that he never succeeds. It's almost funny; Namikaze Minato is one of the most talented shinobi in the village (there are even those who whisper that he should have become Hokage instead of Otousan), but Naruto is dead-last in their year, barely proficient enough to earn his hitai-ate.

Sasuke graduates at the top of his class with the highest practical scores since his brother left the Academy. Perhaps he should be proud of this accomplishment, but all he can think is that he has been overshadowed by Itachi once again. Sasuke might be talented, but he is not a once-in-a-generation wonder like Nisan.

There is a part of him that hates his brother. A small, sad, selfish part, forever jealous of the attention Otousan gives Itachi, resentful of his exceptional gifts. Sasuke tries to ignore this poisonous envy that breeds ill will toward his brother, but sometimes it's hard.

Itachi wakes him in the middle of the night, just hours after his graduation, with a two-fingered tap on the forehead. Sasuke sits up, frowning, and asks, "What?"

Nisan doesn't speak for a long moment, but then he smiles and says, "You're the best thing in my life, Sasuke—the very best—and I love you."

"Oh." He's still half-asleep and a little surprised by Itachi's honesty. Sasuke knows his father and mother and brother love him, but it's not something that is often said aloud in their household.

"That's not the only thing I want to tell you, though," Nisan says. He's no longer smiling. "Do you remember the promise you made me the day you met Masami?"

"Yes," he says. "I remember."

Itachi's eyes appear luminous in the dark, like mirrors reflecting something back at Sasuke, but he can't discern what. "You're going to be mad at me soon, but you have to keep that promise anyway. You understand?"

"Mad at you? Why?"

Nisan stares out the window, and Sasuke wonders what he's looking for. "Don't worry about that right now," he says.

"How am I going to keep my promise anyway? If I don't do what I'm supposed to, Otousan will be disappointed in me."

Itachi sighs. "There's so much wrong in this village because our father isn't the man he should be. There are worse things than suffering his disappointment. Someday you'll see that."

"That's easy for you to say. You're not the one who always disappoints him," Sasuke says.

Nisan laughs, but it doesn't sound like he finds anything funny. "You might be surprised." Itachi stands, ruffles Sasuke's hair, and says, "Goodnight, little brother."

He lies awake long after Nisan leaves, thinking over Itachi's words about Konoha and their father. Sasuke touches the middle of his forehead and realizes that this is the first time his brother has poked him there without saying, "Another time."

The next morning dawns as bright as any other in the Leaf, but as soon as he goes downstairs, Sasuke knows something is wrong. The house is quiet, too quiet, except for the sound of his mother crying. He finds her sitting in the middle of the floor in the hallway, rocking back and forth, clutching a piece of paper. "Okaasan? What's wrong?" he asks.

She wipes her cheeks and looks up at him with eyes just like his own. "Oh, Sasuke," she says. "Come here."

He sits on the floor next to her, lets her pull him into a fierce hug. Sasuke hugs her back, breathes in the sweet honeysuckle scent of her perfume, and feels dread settle into the pit of his stomach.

"Your brother is gone," Okaasan whispers. "He's left Konoha."

_But no one leaves the village_, Sasuke thinks. Rogue nin are hunted, dragged back to the Leaf, and executed. Itachi knows this, knows that leaving means he might never be able to come back.

He takes the paper from his mother and reads Itachi's note. The words wash over him, a farewell wrapped in an apology, addressed to Otousan and Okaasan. His brother wrote nothing to him, and he understands that this is because Itachi delivered his goodbye to Sasuke last night, while the rest of their family was sleeping.

"Where's Otousan?" Sasuke asks.

"He's putting together a search party to go after Itachi," Okaasan says. She pulls on her fingers, a nervous habit he's only ever seen before when his father or brother were on dangerous missions. Perhaps it's something she only does when she's worried that someone she loves won't make it home.

"They'll find him," Sasuke says. _They have to_. Surely Otousan would make an exception for his own son, would allow Itachi back without punishment. He's an Uchiha after all; the laws that rule the rest of the village don't apply to their clan.

But his mother only shakes her head. "No, they won't. There isn't a soul alive who could capture your brother if he doesn't want them to. Not even Fugaku," she says.

She's right, of course. Konoha's best trackers search for Itachi, but he is a one-of-a-kind ninja, his skills unparalleled, and the trail turns cold before they can locate him. Which may be for the best, because there are only a few shinobi who would stand a chance against Itachi if he refused to come quietly: Otousan, the Yellow Flash, the Sannin, old Sarutobi Hiruzen.

Okaasan cries for the first three days of the search, but by the fourth she's quiet, withdrawn, resigned. Broken. A week passes, and Sasuke can tell from the blankness in her eyes, the emptiness of her smile when she tries to comfort him, that the mother he knew is gone forever. Otousan is no better, always silent and cold with his wife, and Sasuke doesn't fail to notice that his parents no longer sleep in the same room. He can't stand the way his father looks at him, like he is an inadequate remainder—as if, given the choice of which son to keep, he wouldn't have picked his youngest.

Itachi ruined this family, tore it apart and left the pieces for Sasuke to pick up, and he doesn't think he can ever forgive his brother for that.

Otousan invites him to his study, tells him to sit down, and says, "From now on, you're the only son I recognize. Are you ready to shoulder that responsibility, Sasuke? Can I trust you to serve our clan before yourself, before anything else?"

Itachi always swore he would protect him, but how could his brother do that if he's not even in the village? _Why should I keep my promise if you can't keep yours, Nisan? _

So Sasuke nods and says, "You can count on me."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** So, I'm back, with a brand new story! I hope everyone enjoys The Valley of the End as much as In Times of Peace, even though this fic is likely going to be quite different and possibly much longer. It will have three parts: Remission, Revolution, and Reconstruction. Yes, I enjoy some good, old-fashioned alliteration from time to time. ;)

If you have any questions about the story, since the AU-ness of it might be a little confusing, feel free to drop me a review or PM. Of course all feedback is welcome, whether it's a glowing comment, constructive criticism, or a simple favorite/follow.

Thank you so much to uchihasass and tall-girl-in-a-small-world for all their help. You ladies grow more fabulous by the day!

Also, the quote at the beginning of the chapter is by Marcus Tullius Cicero.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

_Every society has the criminals it deserves._

* * *

All of Konoha knows about Itachi's defection, and everywhere Sakura goes she hears rumors about why the Yondaime's eldest son would abandon the Leaf: because he hated his father or envied his position as Hokage or wanted to marry a girl from a different village. She hears a dozen theories, some so ridiculous that she wonders who could possibly believe them. At first she expects one of the search parties to return with Itachi in tow, but five, six, seven days pass, and the shinobi assigned to retrieve him all return empty-handed.

Itachi is the first of his clan to forsake the village since its establishment, and Sakura herself wonders why he wanted to leave. The Uchiha are practically royalty here; what could have possibly driven him to give up his home and his family?

On the eighth day since Itachi's disappearance, Iruka-sensei calls her and Naruto to their usual Academy classroom to wait for Sasuke and their jounin teacher. The other squads were united and matched with their new senseis last week, but Team 7 has been waiting to meet for the first time out of respect for Sasuke.

"Do you think he's okay?" Sakura asks. She might not like the Hokage's second son very much, but she doesn't wish him ill.

Naruto shakes his head. "Doubt it," he says. "It seemed like he was pretty close to Itachi. Kinda looked up to him, yanno?"

Sasuke arrives before their sensei. He takes the seat to Sakura's left, props his elbows on the desk, and rests his face against his interlaced fingers.

"I'm sorry about your brother," Sakura says.

"I don't have a brother," Sasuke answers, cool and even. "Not anymore."

She wonders if it's easy for him, dismissing his own family. He makes it look so simple.

They sit in silence until the door opens, and a tall, masked man walks in. Sakura recognizes him, of course. Hatake Kakashi is known as one of the most deadly shinobi in Konoha. His dark eyes crinkle at the corners, and she thinks he might be smiling beneath his mask, but it's difficult to tell.

He takes them to the roof of the Academy and asks them to introduce themselves, to discuss their likes and dislikes, their hobbies and dreams for the future. Naruto loves his mother's cooking and hates how his father is always away on long missions, and he wants to become Hokage.

"All right, next," Kakashi-sensei says.

Sakura feels oddly nervous, even though she's known Sasuke and Naruto for years. "I'm Haruno Sakura. I like practicing my jutsu and spending time with friends. My hobbies are reading and playing trivia games, and my dream is to be the strongest kunoichi in Konoha someday."

"And what do you hate?" Kakashi-sensei asks.

She steals a glance at Sasuke and wonders if she dares to be honest in front of him. "I hate the way the Uchiha run this village."

Naruto's mouth falls open and Kakashi's lazy, heavy-lidded eyes widen, looking suddenly alert.

Sasuke turns to Sakura, frowning, and says, "I'm Uchiha Sasuke, and I don't like you talking about my clan like that."

"What are you going to do?" she asks. "Run and tell your father?"

"Okay, enough," Kakashi says. "Introductions are over."

As their new sensei explains that their _real_ final test will be tomorrow on the training grounds at five o'clock in the morning, Sasuke stares at her, dark eyes assessing, judging. Maybe she shouldn't have said that, but the Uchiha are harsh, unjust rulers, and Sakura can't quite feel sorry for telling the truth.

* * *

Team 7 passes the bell test, and the next few weeks are a blur of training and D-rank missions, everything from catching cats to hunting bandits. Sasuke never understood until becoming a genin the mercenary nature of the shinobi life. Anyone can buy their services, contract them for an assignment of whatever kind, no matter how dull or distasteful. He doesn't like the idea that for the right price he can be bought, but Sasuke accepts that some missions will be important, necessary to the betterment of Konoha, and others will not.

Team 5—Masami, her squadmates Akanishi Sojiro and Mizushima Jin, and her sensei Uchiha Obito—joins them for chakra control training.

Nohara Rin comes along as well, and Sasuke finds himself watching her with Kakashi and Obito. He heard some ugly rumors about the three of them. That Obito refused his intended, an Uchiha girl, for the sake of Rin, only for his love to turn to Kakashi. Now Obito is the only Uchiha to live outside the compound, disowned by his mother and father for dishonoring the clan. Sasuke watches Rin and tries to see what's so special about her. She's a pretty woman, certainly, but not beautiful, with common coloring and an unexceptional figure. Rin seems kind, and he's heard that she's a talented kunoichi, one of the best medic nin in the village. Even so, Sasuke doesn't understand why Obito would give up his family for this woman who didn't even want him.

Sakura (that know-it-all) explains the balance of spiritual and physical energy you must maintain in order to produce jutsu, and then Kakashi and Obito direct them to climb the surrounding trees without using their hands.

Sasuke runs up his tree, five, six, seven, eight feet, until he uses too much chakra and gets thrown backward. On one side of him, Naruto lies on the ground, and on the other Masami struggles to climb more than three or four feet before slipping and falling.

She stands, brushes off her clothes, and says, "This is hard."

Obito laughs and points to Sakura's tree. "Not for everyone, apparently," he says.

Sasuke looks up and sees his teammate sitting on a branch a good twenty feet above them. She sticks out her tongue at him, and he has the childish urge to return the gesture, but he doesn't.

Rin calls up to Sakura, "With chakra control like that, you should consider becoming a medical ninja. I can show you a few things while I'm here, if you're interested."

Sakura walks down her tree, as steadily and easily as Kakashi had demonstrated earlier.

_How is she doing that? _

"Definitely," she says. "Thanks!"

Rin nudges Kakashi in the shoulder playfully. "What do you say, sensei, can I borrow your student?"

Kakashi shrugs. "Go ahead. It doesn't look like there's much more I can teach her here."

Sakura blushes and follows Rin. Sasuke watches her go, watches the white circle on the back of her red dress as she walks away, and for the first time he notices the way her clothes hug her small waist and cling to her hips.

"Sasuke-kun?" Masami asks. "Don't you want to practice?"

He's been standing stock-still, staring after Sakura, instead of trying to run up his tree. Sasuke focuses his chakra to the soles of his feet, careful not to exert too much physical or spiritual energy, and tries again.

Obito allows Team 5 to quit at noon, but Kakashi tells Naruto and Sasuke to keep working until they've mastered the exercise. It doesn't much matter, because Sasuke doesn't intend to stop until he's exceeded the benchmark Sakura set, and he'll be damned before he allows Naruto to beat him.

By the time Rin returns with Sakura, the sun is low in the sky, and Naruto and Sasuke have scarred the trunks of their trees from the bottom up. Just to show off, he thinks, Sakura leisurely strolls up the tree next to Naruto's and takes a seat on one of the upper branches.

Sasuke bends over, hands on his knees, exhausted. But he still hears Rin say, "Your girl's chakra control is _perfect_, Kakashi, and she has more natural aptitude for medical jutsu than anyone I've ever seen. If you want, I can put in a word to Tsunade about her."

Kakashi shakes his head. "Not yet. She might have the talent, but she's not ready to patch up dying men. She needs more experience in the field first. They all do."

"You're probably right about that. These kids do seem pretty green." Rin kisses his masked cheek and asks, "See you at home?"

"Yeah," Kakashi says. "As soon as these idiots figure out how to walk up a damn tree. Speaking of which: Sasuke, stop eavesdropping and get back to work."

* * *

"Is it really our first C-rank mission?" Naruto asks. "Where are we going? What are we doing? Should I bring—?"

"Slow down," Kakashi-sensei says. "If you stop interrupting me I can brief you."

Naruto scratches the back of his head. "Sorry."

Kakashi-sensei tells them that they will be tracking down a missing-nin by the name of Masanobu Ryu, an experienced Leaf chunin who fled Konoha last night.

Naruto looks at Sasuke, and he wonders if it will be difficult for him, hunting a rogue shinobi, a defector not unlike his own brother. But if he is bothered by this, Sasuke doesn't show it.

"Team 8 will be coming with us," Kakashi-sensei says. "They're responsible for tracking Masanobu, but once we find him, everyone will work together to capture him."

"What's going to happen to him when we bring him back to the village?" Sakura asks.

Kakashi-sensei gives her a level look. "You already know the answer to that," he says.

Missing-nin are executed, always (although Naruto doubts Uchiha Itachi would have suffered that fate, had he been recovered). It's the law. He knows that rogue shinobi are a threat to Konoha's security, that they take the secrets and skills which belong to the Leaf with them when they flee, endangering the whole village. Catching a defector is necessary, and he should be happy to finally be given such an important assignment. But Naruto doesn't like the idea of killing a man just for running away, and from the look of Sakura's frown, neither does she.

"Can we refuse the mission?" she asks.

"Not if you want to remain a Konoha shinobi," Kakashi-sensei says flatly.

They meet Team 8 at the gate an hour later. Hinata blushes and stammers hello, Shino says nothing, hiding behind his high collar and his sunglasses, and Kiba brags that this is his squad's _third _C-rank mission, so Team 7 better follow their lead.

Naruto crosses his arms over his chest. "You're just here to track down the target," he says. "It's us who'll be capturing him! You wait and see."

Kiba laughs. "Like you'll be capturing anything, dead-last."

Kakashi-sensei catches Naruto by the back of his shirt to keep him from pouncing on Kiba. "Save it for the mission," he says.

"But he called me dead-last—"

"Well, you _were _dead-last in your year," Kakashi says reasonably. "You can't beat up all your peers for telling the truth."

Naruto pouts. "Some sensei you are," he grumbles.

So far Kakashi hasn't taught him much of anything useful besides the shadow clone jutsu (the only thing he was better at than Sasuke). Kakashi always has time enough for the Hokage's son, teaching him new techniques and practicing taijutsu one-on-one. And ever since Sakura outshone both of her teammates at chakra control, he has allowed her to take medical ninjutsu lessons with Rin. Naruto isn't learning anything special, though, and even though he'd never say it out loud, he's starting to worry that maybe all of his classmates were right to call him a loser. That he's just a mediocre shinobi who'll never advance past the rank of genin, much less ever become Hokage.

But whenever he starts to think like that, Naruto reminds himself that he'll make up for his shortcomings in dedication and guts. _I'll show them on this mission_, he decides. _No matter what. _

It takes Akamaru all of a minute to pick up Masanobu's scent, but their target has half a day's head start on them, and so they follow the trail for hours. South, then east, until the sky darkens, and when Naruto glances over his shoulder he sees a blazing sun of red and orange seeping into the dusk. Every muscle in his body hurts after a day spent running, but it's a good ache. A present sort of pain that reminds him of where he is and what he's doing.

Kurenai calls for both teams to stop just a few miles shy of the shoreline. Naruto sits in the grass, breathing heavily, too tired to care whether or not this makes him look weak. But then the other genin (except Sasuke) do the same. "It looks like Masanobu caught a boat somewhere near here, so we're going to lose his scent," Kurenai says. "We'll need to split up into pairs and question the locals to see if we can find out where he went."

"I want to work with Sakura-chan." Naruto glances at his teammate, hoping she might agree, but Sakura just rolls her pretty green eyes and says, "I don't think we get to pick our partners."

"Right, as usual, Sakura," Kakashi-sensei says. "Naruto, you'll be with me."

"Why?"

"Because you're the most likely to cause trouble," Kakashi tells him flatly. "Sakura, you go with Sasuke."

* * *

Before her graduation from the Academy, Sakura had never been outside of Konoha. The Hokage's laws prevent travel between different districts of the country without a permit. Laws that did not apply to the Uchiha, naturally, who could come and go across the nation as they pleased. And so the ocean to the east of this nameless fishing village is the first that Sakura has ever seen. She's struck by the wide, unforgiving breadth of the waters. Waves rolling in under the new moon, more black than blue, speckled with reflected starlight.

"It's beautiful," Sakura says, without really meaning to.

Sasuke frowns. "We're here on a mission. Not to sight-see."

"Maybe it's not special to you because you can leave Konoha whenever you like," she says. "Missions are the only time I get to see new places." She knows it's irresponsible, but Sakura isn't about the visit the seaside without swimming. She runs to the beach, feels herself kicking up sand in her wake.

"What are you doing? The village is the other way." Sasuke sighs, obviously annoyed, but he follows her anyway.

Sakura stops, removes her shoes and weapons pouch, then unzips her dress and pulls it off too. She's still decent enough, wearing a practical bra and green leggings. Not the best swimwear, perhaps, but it'll have to do. The sand is gritty against the tender skin of her bare feet, and when she draws close enough for the waves to brush her ankles, she almost jumps at the coldness of the water.

"This is a waste of time," Sasuke says, impatient.

Sakura turns around so that she's facing her teammate and walks backward into the water. Icy ocean creeps up her calves, tickles the backs of her knees, her thighs, her waist. She laughs and says, "C'mon, get in here!"

Sasuke looks at her oddly for a moment, almost as if he's considering her proposal against his better judgment. But then he says, "No way."

Sasuke does what he pleases when he pleases, as arrogant and inconsiderate as the rest of his clan, and normally she wouldn't care. But for some reason, tonight, it matters to Sakura that he does the wrong thing for once instead of being so insufferably perfect all the time. "Five minutes, and then I promise we'll go straight back to work."

He scowls and looks away, and just when Sakura is certain that he's ignoring her, Sasuke pulls his shirt over his head, then bends to take off his shoes. She doesn't understand why, but by the time he joins her, treading water where it's just barely too deep to stand, Sakura's heart is beating faster than it should. He's close enough now that she can see his dark eyes and the lines of his finely carved features. She's noticed Sasuke's good looks before, of course, but he's never been this close to her outside of sparring, and it occurs to Sakura that he is perhaps the most handsome boy she's ever met.

She feels a flash of guilt, because Sasuke belongs to Masami. She's irritated with herself for thinking stupid things, then irritated with her teammate for being as brilliant as he is conceited, as beautiful as he is untouchable. So she splashes water at Sasuke and smiles as he splutters and shakes his head. There's a split second where he stares at her, dumbfounded, as if he can't believe she'd _dare_, and then he splashes her back.

She knows Sasuke well enough to guess that this is just the beginning of his reprisal, so she swims away, then wades to the shore. She doesn't make it a foot onto dry land before he tackles her. Sakura hits the earth hard enough to knock the wind out of her, but she remembers from training how to push him away before he can get her in a good hold. He's back on her in a second, though, and they roll in the sand, half in the surf, until Sasuke gets the upperhand and pins her to the ground. She struggles, but Sakura is slightly smaller than him and he's skilled enough to know how to exploit her weaknesses.

"Fine, you win," Sakura says. "Now get off me."

Sasuke doesn't let her go, doesn't say anything, but he's looking at her in the strangest way, frowning even as his gaze lingers on her wet hair, her eyes, her mouth. Almost as if he's trying to puzzle out a difficult problem and he expects to find the answer in her expression.

"Sasuke-kun," she says softly—as much an entreaty as her pride will allow.

He startles and scrambles away from her, and in the moment their bodies separate Sakura misses the warm weight of him, protecting her from the cool night air. They dress in silence, and Sasuke says, all business, "Let's get to the village and start asking questions."

"Yeah," Sakura says. "Sure."

They walk westward, toward the town, side by side, with enough space between them for a third person to stand.

* * *

Sasuke spends two hours with Sakura, making inquiries of the local fishermen, hoping that Masanobu may have paid someone for the use of a boat, but no one in this backwater village has seen any strangers in weeks, and they return to the rendezvous point empty handed. Of all people, it's gentle Hinata's questioning that bears fruit. A young woman saw a man fitting their target's description stealing a neighbor's skiff, then sailing east.

"If she saw him taking it, why didn't she stop him?" Naruto asks.

Sasuke can't keep himself from snorting. Sometimes Naruto really is an idiot. "Because most people aren't that noble," he says.

Kakashi orders all of them into a boat large enough for eight shinobi and a puppy.

"We can't just take this," Sakura says. "It's probably someone's livelihood."

"Get in," Kakashi-sensei says, in a tone that commands obedience. "We'll return the damn dinghy before anyone has had time to miss it."

Sakura takes a seat between Naruto and Sasuke, and Kurenai uses a wind jutsu to fill the sails.

"Where are we going?" Kiba asks.

"There's only one thing east of here," Kurenai says, "and that's Whirlpool."

Naruto looks up suddenly. "But there's nothing left of Whirlpool. It was destroyed in the last war."

"How do you know that?" Sasuke asks. Naruto usually slept through their history classes.

His teammate shrugs and says, too-casual, "My mother's from Uzushio."

Sasuke has met Uzumaki Kushina a few times, and she seems like a nice enough woman, if more temperamental than his own mother, but he considers her with a newfound respect in light of this revelation. What must it be like to lose your family, your home, your entire way of life? This is a hardship Sasuke is unlikely to ever face, and he's grateful for that.

It's a short but boring trip from Fire to the ruins of Whirlpool. They leave their stolen boat on the shore and continue on foot, led once again by Akamaru's nose. Luckily enough, he picks up the scent again. So Masanobu _is _here. Sasuke is frankly surprised. He'd expected that their target headed east only for as long as it took to escape the sight of nosy lookouts, then changed directions. This, after all, is what Sasuke would have done if he were a missing-nin.

As they follow Akamaru, his thoughts drift to Itachi. Sasuke wonders where his brother is and why he left, what could have driven him to abandon Konoha. Itachi's defection has hardened Otousan and broken Okaasan, and Sasuke wants, more than anything, to face his big brother and demand answers.

He shakes off these musings and tells himself that this isn't the time or the place. Sasuke knows he needs to focus if he wants to complete his first C-rank mission.

The land here is all green hills and swirling rivers and lush valleys, no trees in sight. They pass through an abandoned town, its buildings torn down and burnt, the blackened rubble overgrown with moss and vines. An empty shell of a place, inhabited only by a few stray cats. Naruto lingers beside the remains of a house, his hand pressed to the one wall that's still standing.

"Who would do this?" he asks, his rough voice softer than Sasuke has ever heard it.

"That's what war looks like," Kakashi says. "Hope you never have to see it in your lifetime."

Kiba pets Akamaru and says, "We're close now, about a half-mile away."

Hinata activates her Byakugan, and the chakra coils beside her eyes swell. Shino crouches and presses his ear to the ground. Sasuke can't guess what the Aburame boy is doing, but a moment later he sits up and says, "We have a problem. Masanobu isn't alone."

"How many are there?" Kurenai asks.

"Five," Shino says.

"All right," Kakashi says. "This changes things. We know our target's abilities, but his companions are wild cards. Hinata, we're depending on your Byakugan. When we get close enough for you to see, tell us what you can about the people with Masanobu. All right?"

Hinata nods, and they set off again. Sakura looks worried, and even Naruto appears subdued. This mission just got much more complicated, and possibly more dangerous than C-rank, depending on who's with Masanobu. Sasuke has the sense to be wary, but he isn't scared. There isn't much that frightens him, and he's always been confident in his skills, no matter his opponent (except against Itachi).

Hinata stops their group and says, "Three of them are sleeping: Masanobu and two samurai. The others are keeping watch. A woman wearing a Sand hitai-ate and an old man. He has chakra like… like strong."

"An Uzumaki," Kakashi says. "We should split up and encircle them."

Kurenai nods. "Ambush them from every side. If we're lucky we might be able to subdue the ones who are sleeping before they gather themselves."

"Team 7 will take the two who are awake." Kakashi turns to his squad and says, "Sasuke, Sakura, Naruto: I'll attack the old man while you all fight the Sand kunoichi. You're not to interfere with my battle. Understood?"

"Yes," they say, the three of them together, lying without meaning to.

* * *

Masanobu and his companions are camped out in the ruins of Uzushio itself. The four of them sneak, silent on light feet, through the broken buildings, using fallen walls and pillars marked with the Whirlpool emblem for cover, until they reach their target.

Hinata was right; only the Uzumaki and the Sand shinobi are awake. Naruto watches the old man, wondering if he is some kind of cousin or great-uncle. His long hair is as red as Okaasan's, but threaded with grey. Naruto has never met another relative from his mother's clan, and now he's expected to look on while his sensei defeats him.

Kakashi gives the signal, and they charge into the middle of Masanobu's camp, shuriken flying ahead of them. Naruto can just see Team 8 ambushing the three sleeping men from the other side, but he follows Sasuke (the bastard is fast, ahead of him as always) and pulls a kunai as he approaches the Sand shinobi.

She's quick, though, and easily dodges the attacks from three genin. "This is too easy," she says, then makes hand seals Naruto can't follow. Dirt rises from the ground, the very earth coming alive around them, forming into a half-dozen giants. Men ten feet tall with dull hollows for eyes, noseless and mouthless.

"I'll take her," Sasuke says. "You guys get rid of these things." And then he rushes the Sand kunoichi, kunai drawn, but Naruto can't wait and watch his teammate's fight, because the creatures under their opponent's command are stirring.

Sakura dodges an earthen fist and flings two shuriken at the creature. They land precisely in the empty sockets where eyes belong, but the giant seems unaffected. It stomps the ground beside Sakura, and she jumps backward.

"Let's climb the rubble so we have some height," Naruto says.

"Good thinking!"

They run up the nearest wall, and Naruto is suddenly thankful for all those hours practicing chakra control. Then he throws more shuriken, for all the good it does.

The giants are slow but strong, and if they land even one blow, it could mean his life or Sakura's.

"We need to find their weak points as fast as possible," Sakura says. "Naruto, use your kage bunshin to attack one all over until you find its vulnerabilities."

He performs the hand seals and concentrates, dividing his chakra amongst thirty clones. Naruto feels his awareness expand, somehow taking in the knowledge and experience of each clone. He jumps on the nearest giant, and a small army of doppelgangers jumps with him. They stab its forehead, heart, knees, stomach, chest, between its shoulders, the back of its neck—the earth here parts, soft as wet clay, and Naruto's clone digs into the dirt until his fingers close around something hard, no larger than a marble. He rips it out and finds that it's a black stone inscribed with kanji for heaven and earth. The creature can make no cry or expression of pain, but it trembles all over and falls to its knees.

He and Sakura make quick work of the remaining giants, pulling out the stones that animate them. By the time they finish, Sasuke has wound the Sand kunoichi in wire from shoulders to ankles and tied her hands behind her back. She spits at him and calls him the son of a tyrant and a whore—

"Be quiet," Sasuke says. He makes a few quick hand seals (ox, monkey, rat) and her lips snap shut.

"Where are Kakashi-sensei and the Uzumaki man?" Sakura asks.

Naruto looks around and sees that their teacher and his kin have disappeared.

"They went north," Sasuke says. "Kakashi was leading him away from us, I think."

Team 8 was still busy with Masanobu and the samurai, and Kakashi told them to stay out of his fight, but he doesn't want to abandon his sensei.

"Let's go," Naruto says. "We have to help him."

It doesn't take long to find Kakashi. He's in a valley surrounded by the Whirlpool ninja and three enormous beasts: a falcon, ram, and snake large enough to put the Sand kunoichi's earthen giants to shame.

"Get out of here!" Kakashi shouts.

Sasuke charges in first, toward the enemy shinobi, leaving Naruto and Sakura to face the minions again. _Teme_, Naruto thinks. How's he supposed to prove himself this way? It's probably for the best, though, because if there's one thing his mother has taught him, it's fuinjutsu.

* * *

Sakura doesn't know how Naruto manages it, but within a few minutes he's sealed all three of the summons. Before she can congratulate him or ask questions, she hears a sound like a thousand chirping birds, and when she turns she sees Kakashi-sensei with his arm elbow-deep in the Uzumaki ninja's chest. His hand is pushed _through _the old man, and it's alive with blue lightning. She's too surprised for a moment, stunned by the sight of her lazy, perpetually late sensei killing a man, to realize that Sasuke is on the ground, and he isn't moving.

"Sasuke-kun!" she shouts. Sakura runs to her fallen teammate, but when she reaches him, she freezes. Blood soaks his torn, blue shirt and stains his shorts. It looks like he was slashed with a katana, and his hands are a horrible, awful red from where he's been trying to keep his stomach closed.

She wants to cry over this boy she thought she didn't even like, and for a moment all she can think of is his beautiful face cast in silver by the starlight, hovering over her on the beach. So alive just hours ago, and now he's going to die if she doesn't do something.

Sakura uses a kunai to rip open his shirt. Dawn light creeps over the horizon, and under its golden glow she can see the diagonal wound that stretches across his stomach. It's deep, but not deep enough to have caused internal damage, and for that she's thankful. Rin has taught her how to close lacerations, but healing organs is a delicate business that takes medics years to learn. Still, she has only practiced on cadavers in the hospital morgue, never on a person whose life depends on her skills.

She summons chakra to her hands and places them over the wound. Sakura feels the muscle and skin and sinew that parted beneath an enemy's blade, and she focuses on knitting it all back together. It takes five minutes, ten, but the bleeding stops and his flesh closes, leaving a raw, pink line down Sasuke's stomach. Still, his face is too white and his lips are pale, and Sakura doesn't know the blood replenishing jutsu yet. Rin had planned to teach it to her after she returned from this mission.

"Sasuke-kun," she says again, and Sakura doesn't know when she started crying, but there are tears dripping from her chin, falling to mix with the blood.

Kakashi puts a hand on her shoulder. "You did well, Sakura. If we get him to the Konoha hospital fast enough, he'll make it."

Then he lifts Sasuke in his arms and runs back to the ruins of Uzushio. Sakura wipes her bloody hands on her dress, stands on trembling legs, and follows her sensei.

* * *

**Author's Note:** An action-packed chapter (and action is the bane of my existence), but I hope you guys think it turned out well. Thank you so much to uchihasass and tall-girl-in-a-small-world, my fabulous betas, and thank you to everyone who reviewed, favorited, or followed the first chapter! So many people left awesome, encouraging comments, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. :D Also, the quote at the beginning of this chapter is by Emma Goldman.


	3. Chapter 3

**TW: **Trigger warning for child abuse.

* * *

**Chapter Three**

_Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear._

* * *

Sasuke wakes and wonders why he isn't dead. He remembers jumping between Kakashi and the Uzumaki ninja, feeling the enemy's katana slice through his flesh. Pain, worse than he's ever felt before. Falling, grasping at his bleeding stomach, and then darkness. A wound like that should have killed him. He ought to have bled out under the dawn sky, just another genin lost in the line of battle.

Now it's nighttime, and the moon outside his window is waxing. By its fullness, he'd guess he has been asleep for two days. Sasuke sits up, ignoring the ache in his abdomen. It feels like someone sewed him up with a needle and thread, that his insides are bursting at the seams.

"Be careful," Kakashi says, and it's only then that he realizes he isn't alone. His sensei sits in a chair in the corner, legs propped up on the windowsill, reading one of Jiraiya's lewd novels. Naruto is curled up in his own chair, passed out, snoring quietly. Okaasan rushes to him and presses a light kiss to his cheek, as if afraid he's too fragile to touch.

"Where's Sakura?" he asks, oddly disappointed that she isn't here.

"Her mother made her go home," Kakashi says.

Sasuke has a hard time believing that anyone could make Sakura do anything, stubborn as she is, but he lets it be. So what if she didn't care to sit by his bedside and watch him convalesce? He doubts he would have done the same for her.

What truly hurts is his father's absence. He has done everything Otousan has ever asked, and yet the Hokage still doesn't have time to visit his only remaining son in the hospital. Something of his thoughts must show on his face, because Okaasan fusses with his hair and says, "Your father was here earlier, Sasuke, but once the medics assured him that you would be fine he had to leave."

_To do what? Paperwork?_ He almost says it, but Okaasan doesn't deserve the sharp side of his tongue.

Kakashi closes his book. "Sakura saved your life, you know."

"But she hates me," Sasuke says.

His sensei laughs, stands, and says, "No, she doesn't. And if you need proof of that, just wait and see; she'll be back to check on you before the sun is up."

By the time Sakura arrives, Naruto, Kakashi, and even Okaasan have gone home to sleep. She's wearing an outfit he's never seen before, a dark green dress with short sleeves, and he can tell from the shadows beneath her eyes that she hasn't slept well. She smiles as soon as she sees him sitting up in bed, and in a second she's on him, arms thrown around his shoulders. Sakura is careful not to upset his injury, but she isn't overly gentle the way his mother had been. Without really considering why, Sasuke puts an arm around her back and buries his face in her short, pink hair. She smells wonderful, like freshly mown grass and flower blossoms, like spring personified.

He's alive because of this girl, and even though the words are usually difficult for Sasuke to say, today he has no trouble whispering, "Thank you."

His father never does come to the hospital again, but the day after he's released, Otousan is quick enough to order Sasuke back to the training grounds. He's tired and the place he was wounded still hurts, but he knows his father has no tolerance for excuses, so Sasuke says nothing except, "Yes, sir." He spends the morning running, throwing shuriken at targets, and practicing his techniques, all under Otousan's watchful eye.

"You're slow," his father says. "Pick up the pace."

Sasuke pushes harder, moves faster through his kata, ignoring the soreness of his stomach, until a sharp pain makes him miss a kick, and he falls to the ground. Lands on his side in the dirt, and Sasuke can't help it, he curls in on himself and tries not to make any noise.

"Get up," Otousan says. He doesn't sound angry or impatient, just dully disappointed.

Sasuke regains his feet, if slowly. His stomach throbs and he feels nauseous, light-headed. If he keeps going he might fall again, or worse, faint, but he can't give up. Not in front of his father. So Sasuke takes a deep breath, steadies himself, and moves through the forms. He will do this until it's perfect, until Otousan is proud of him.

He works for another hour, and by the end he's shaking and sick and on the verge of passing out. But when his father claps him on the shoulder and says, "I knew you could do it," Sasuke doesn't care how awful he feels, it was worth all the pain for this rare moment of praise.

They return home, and when his mother sees the condition he's in, she pushes Otousan's chest and says, angrier than he has ever seen her, "What are you trying to do, kill him?"

"I'm fine," Sasuke says, because he doesn't want them to argue. He's growing used to cold silences, the lack of speech in their once warm household, but he's yet to see his parents fight.

"You're not fine," Okaasan says, "you nearly died less than a week ago, and Tsunade herself said you shouldn't train for at least a few days." She rounds on her husband again and asks, "It's not enough that you already ran one of our sons away? Do you want to make Sasuke hate us too?"

His father's face remains expressionless, but when he speaks his voice shakes. "If you weren't a woman I'd—"

"You'd what?" Okaasan asks. "Hit me?"

Sasuke leaves before he can hear the rest. His mother and father stop arguing long enough to order him back into the house, but he doesn't care. He runs down the street, through the compound gates, and into the thick of Konoha traffic. Sasuke doesn't even know where he's headed, only that it has to be a better place than the home he just left.

He has understood for a long time that he sometimes says biting things simply because he's angry or cornered or scared, and he always assumed that he picked this up from his father. That's wrong, though, because Otousan never says a thing without thinking it through. No, it's from his mother that Sasuke learned how to say hurtful things he doesn't mean.

He's standing outside Sakura's little apartment building on Kaede Street before he realizes that's where his feet have carried him to. Sasuke knocks and waits for her to answer.

A moment later, Sakura peeks around the door and asks, "Sasuke? What are you doing here?"

He can feel his wound beginning to bleed again, oozing beneath its bandages, and he supposes that's as good of an excuse as any. "I need you to heal me."

"Oh, well, um, come in then." She lets him inside, if a little reluctantly.

Sakura's home is unlike anything he's ever seen before. Tidy but tiny, and the mismatched furniture has seen better days. There's a lumpy, green couch and an armchair which looks grey but might once have been blue; the upholstery on both is worn, threadbare, and dingy. The den and the kitchen share one small space, and he doesn't see a dining table anywhere (there isn't room for one). Sasuke wonders where they eat. Perhaps at the shabby coffee table? He tries not to stare, but it's difficult, and Sakura's too sharp not to notice this.

He expects her to be angry, but instead she just sighs and says, "Let me guess: this is the first home you've seen outside of the compound?"

Sasuke nods, a little embarrassed by his own transparency.

"Come on," Sakura says, "I can patch you up in my room."

He follows her to a bedroom that looks more like a large closet. Sakura's space is spartan, whether out of necessity or preference he isn't sure. Empty of adornment except for a mirror on the wall, and the only accession to her interests is a line of books on top of her dresser: three medical tomes, a trivia text, and several novels. Sasuke picks up the one off the end to see if he's read it, only to find that beneath its dull literary jacket is a copy of _Icha Icha Violence_.

"I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about," Sakura says hurriedly. "I didn't even finish it."

"Right," Sasuke says, smirking. "I'm sure."

She blushes and laughs. "Okay, fine, I did finish it. It was truly awful, though. The writing's not bad, but Jiraiya really doesn't know a thing about women. What kind of self-respecting kunoichi falls in love with a rogue ninja?"

"That isn't really the plot?" Sasuke asks. He puts the book back where he found it, takes a seat on her bed, and pulls his shirt off.

Sakura frowns when she sees his blood-stained bandages. She takes the dressing off of his stomach with careful, steady hands and asks, "How did this happen?"

"Training," Sasuke says.

Sakura gets a wet washcloth from the bathroom, sits next to him, and wipes away the blood on his stomach. It's cold and he jumps a little under her touch. "You're supposed to rest for four days," she says. "One, two, three, four. You're a genius, so I know you can count."

"My father didn't give me a lot of choices in the matter." Sasuke doesn't know why he's confiding in her. He's not even sure if they're friends, but Sakura _did _save his life, and that has to count for something.

She takes a moment to focus, then puts her hands over the reopened skin. The pain instantly recedes, dulled by her soothing chakra. "He made you train when you're still hurt like this?" Sakura asks softly.

The honest answer is _yes_, but it seems like a betrayal to say as much outright, so Sasuke says nothing.

"I'm sorry he did that to you," she whispers.

He pulls back, breaking the flow of her chakra. "You make it sound like something awful."

Sakura ignores him and scoots closer. She continues healing until his skin threads back together, leaving no mark but a faint pink line. "There. Take it easy for the rest of the week and you should be fine," she says.

"Thanks."

Her hands linger on his stomach for a moment longer than necessary, and there's something about her touch that makes him feel warm and unsteady, nervous and eager to lean closer all at once. Part of him wants to savor this feeling, the deliciousness of contact, to keep hold of it long enough to examine.

But then Sakura pulls away, and Sasuke feels oddly bereft. Deprived of something he knows he shouldn't want in the first place.

* * *

Team 7 has been different since the mission to Whirlpool. Naruto argues with Sasuke every other minute, and Sakura still questions Sasuke whenever he needs it, but fighting together has changed things between them. There's a subtle shift in their dynamic, an easiness borne from trust that wasn't there before.

Today, the three genin are sitting in a meadow on the outskirts of the village, enjoying the waning autumn sun. They often come here when they're off duty, and Sakura is beginning to think of this spot as their own special place. She and Naruto eat sticks of dango, but Sasuke turns his nose up at the dumplings.

"Just try one," Sakura says, "you might like it."

"No, I won't. I hate anything sweet."

"Fine. More for me then." She nibbles on her dango and lies back on the blue blanket she brought from home.

It's always warm in the Fire Country, no matter the time of year—they have wet springs and muggy summers and mild winters, but it's the autumns that Sakura likes best. Lazy, pleasant days like this one, all the more lovely for their fleeting nature. She always has had a soft spot for ephemeral things.

Naruto lies next to her and covers his eyes with an orange-sleeved arm, blocking out the afternoon sunlight. Sasuke remains sitting up, stiff-backed and solitary, until Sakura takes his hand and tugs him down to her other side. She threads their fingers together, half-expecting him not to tolerate this, but he does. Then she grasps Naruto's hand too, linking them all together by touch. She isn't sure how or when, but somewhere along the way these boys became _her _boys, and she knows she would do anything to protect them.

They stay this way for a long time, just lying side by side, Sakura bookended by her idiot (beautiful, brilliant) teammates. Until Naruto breaks the silence, saying, "I'm glad you guys are my friends, yanno?"

"Me too," Sakura says. She gives his hand a gentle squeeze, and Naruto squeezes back.

Sasuke doesn't say anything at all until Sakura nudges him with her foot ungently, if not quite a kick. Then he grunts and says, "Yeah, whatever. I guess we're a pretty good team."

She smiles, lays her head on his shoulder, and asks, "Is that the best we're going to get out of you?"

Sakura can hear the smirk in his voice when he says, "Yes, it is."

With her cheek pressed against him, she can smell whatever laundry detergent his mother uses on his clothes, but beneath that soft, clean scent is a trace of smoke and fire, something that is wholly Sasuke.

He untangles their fingers, stands up, and says, "We should get going."

Sakura shakes the grass off of her blanket, folds it, and follows her teammates back to the heart of Konoha. The boys are arguing about what to do next—Naruto wants to follow up their dango with ramen, but Sasuke refuses to eat Ichiraku for the third time this week—when she notices that a crowd of people lingers in the village square, an assembly of some kind in front of the Justice Hall. There's a mix of Uchiha, other shinobi, and civilians, all gathered together.

"I wonder what's going on over there," Sakura says.

"Let's find out!" Naruto catches her by the hand and pulls her toward the crowd.

She looks over her shoulder to see Sasuke following, if unenthusiastically. Naruto, forward as always, taps a woman on the arm and asks what everyone is waiting to see.

She nods toward the stage that has been set up in front of the Justice Hall. "That missing-nin's being executed for desertion."

Sakura's stomach twists, and for a moment she thinks her sweet dumplings may come back up. In the weeks since their mission she has ignored Masanobu's capture, caught up first with Sasuke's recovery, then with daily responsibilities, missions and chores and training. It was Team 8 who caught and restrained Masanobu, after all. Sakura's concern on the way back to Konoha had been Sasuke, and Sasuke only. She gave little thought to the man whose death awaited him at home.

Two Uchiha police officers escort Masanobu Ryu to the stage. He's a slight, ordinary looking man, no more than twenty-five, with short brown hair and pale eyes. Now his hands have been bound behind his back, and from the sluggish way he walks, Sakura suspects he's been drugged. Something to keep the captive calm and docile as they lead him to the slaughter.

The Hokage may have ordered Masanobu's death, but it's his underlings who carry out the deed. The Police Chief himself, Uchiha Ando, calls out to the crowd, warning the shinobi there of the penalty for defection.

"Does he really deserve to die?" Sakura asks.

"He's a deserter, and he knew the consequences when he left," Sasuke says, but he sounds less confident than usual.

For once, Naruto says nothing. His sky blue eyes are trained on the stage, where a police officer now stands behind Masanobu. He's taller than the runaway by a good foot, so it isn't hard to see that he's placing his hands on either side of the man's slender throat. Sakura knows what's coming, and she desperately wants to look away, but she's sure that if she does she'll never forgive herself. The officer jerks his hands, hard and fast. She's too far from the stage to hear the sound, but Sakura sees the unnatural angle of Masanobu's neck as it snaps.

_We did this_. Not just Team 7 and Team 8. The police officers and the Hokage and every person standing in the crowd who looked on and did nothing. They are all responsible, in one way or another.

* * *

Naruto can't sleep. Every time he closes his eyes he sees the missing-nin's execution. The policeman's thick, brutal hands. How Masanobu's whole body went limp after the officer broke his neck. A clear sky above them, the taste of dango still on his tongue. His own voicelessness, just another silent witness watching a man die.

He gets out of bed and goes to the kitchen. Takes a drink of milk straight from the carton (a habit Okaasan hates), wipes his mouth, and sits at the table.

Did Masanobu have a family? A wife or children or parents? Had his mother been somewhere in the crowd outside the Justice Hall?

Naruto hears light footsteps, then Otousan is there, wearing his striped blue pajama pants and a t-shirt, spiky blonde hair sleep-rumpled. "Naruto? Why are you up? It's two o'clock in the morning."

"Couldn't sleep," he says.

His father walks over, takes the chair to his right, and asks, "Is something on your mind?"

He didn't tell his parents about the execution. It's not a thing they would have wanted him to see, and he understands well enough why. But now Otousan is looking at him with shrewd blue eyes, the same color as Naruto's own. Namikaze Minato is a sharp man who misses little, and he'll know if his son is lying.

So he tells the truth. "I saw the police kill that missing-nin, and now I can't get it out of my head."

Otousan makes a worried face, but it's his thinking-frown, not his disappointed-frown.

"I didn't mean to see it, I swear."

His father says, "I believe you."

"Then I'm not in trouble?" Naruto asks.

"No, you're not in trouble," Otousan says. "But, Naruto, if seeing a man die bothered you this much, you're going to have a hard time in the field. To be a shinobi is to be a weapon, and you know what weapons are for."

"I do, but what if that isn't what it really means to be a ninja? What if we're supposed to be something else, yanno?"

His father is quiet for a long time, and then he asks, "Do you know how many people I've killed for Konoha?"

Naruto couldn't begin to guess. His father graduated the Academy at ten, was promoted to chunin by the time he was twelve. He probably started assassinating enemies before most of his classmates earned their hitai-ate. "I don't know."

"Neither do I. I'm not the kind to keep count, but it's in the hundreds. Men and women and even children," Otousan says. "Are you prepared to do that? Do you think you could end someone's life to protect this village?"

"Maybe," Naruto says. "If it was really to keep Konoha safe. But I don't think that's what killing Masanobu was about."

"Well, what do you think was happening?" Otousan asks.

"I'm not sure."

He's close to something, on the verge of a better understanding of this world around him, and with it, the desire to make things different. He knows, and has known for a long time, that life in Konoha isn't as it should be. It's not right that the Uchiha hold every position of power in this village—the Hokage, the police, the council of elders. It's not fair that Sasuke makes twice as much money as Naruto and Sakura for the same missions, simply because he's an Uchiha. It's wrong that people outside the ruling clan have to pay higher taxes, and are restricted to their districts, and get executed for desertion, while the Uchiha are above these laws.

Naruto knows all of this, and until now he'd always assumed these things were set in stone, as immutable as the faces on the Hokage monument; but what if they're not?

"I thought I had to wait until I was Hokage to change Konoha, but that's backwards, isn't it? I have to make our village better first. And if I can't, I don't deserve to lead."

"You can't say things like that to anyone but me or your mother," Otousan says. "Not even to Sakura, and especially not to Sasuke. Do you understand?"

"I wouldn't say that to Sasuke anyway. It'd just make him mad."

His father smiles, but he looks more weary than happy. "Sasuke seems like a good boy. It's a shame he's Fugaku's son."

Naruto certainly wouldn't want the Yondaime for a father. He's jealous of many things that belong to Sasuke, but his family isn't one of them.

"Go back to bed and try to get some rest," Otousan says.

Naruto nods and tells his father goodnight. He falls asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow, and he dreams of a different Konoha. One where people are treated the same, no matter what clan they come from.

* * *

His cousin Saiyuri gets married as October slips into November, and Sasuke takes Masami to the wedding. She looks nice in a deep blue kimono, her long, dark hair pulled away from her face. After the ceremony, he walks her from the shrine to his uncle's house, where there's a banquet laid out for a hundred clansmen. Masami sits to his left, and every move she makes is graceful, delicate, predictable. Sasuke finds her company comforting. She is familiar to him, a stable factor in a world that has given him too many variables lately. Itachi is gone and his parents' marriage is falling apart, but Masami is still patient, still gentle, and in four or five years she will become his wife.

But for some reason, as he watches Saiyuri with her new husband and considers his own wedding someday, it isn't Masami he thinks of. Sasuke remembers the springtime scent of Sakura's hair when she embraced him in the hospital. The warmth of her fingers entwined with his own. The feel of her beneath him when they tussled on the beach, all slender lines and subtle curves. Sakura does not possess the dark beauty he has been taught to admire, but he finds her lovely all the same.

It doesn't much matter, though, because Uchiha never marry outside the clan, and Sasuke is nothing if not a dutiful son.

Still, he can't help but notice that Saiyuri seems more solemn than happy, that her smiles are too strained to be genuine. He wonders if this is what he will look like the day he becomes a husband.

"Sasuke-kun?" Masami asks. "You seem distracted. Is something wrong?"

"No," he says.

She smiles at him, and the expression is so soft on her kind face that it soothes him a little. Perhaps he will grow to love her someday. And if not, then they will at least have a peaceful marriage.

As the reception carries on into the evening, Sasuke and Masami take a walk in the garden behind his uncle's house. Night-blooming blossoms are beginning to open shy petals, and the air is redolent of flowers and woodsmoke. The harvest moon looms full and golden overhead, and the stars wink into view as the cloudless sky darkens from dusky blue to violet to black. It's a perfect autumn night, and Sasuke wishes, for a moment, that Sakura were here to enjoy it with him. This is her favorite season, and in a few weeks it will give way to winter.

Masami touches his hand and asks, "What's wrong, Sasuke? I've known you long enough to tell when you're unhappy."

He can hardly say that he's yearning for the presence of another girl, and though there's plenty else that's bothering him—Itachi's desertion, his parents' disintegrating relationship, the brutal execution of Masanobu Ryu—Sasuke finds that he can't confide in Masami. She would never share his secrets, he's sure of that, but he doesn't trust her the way he trusts Naruto or Sakura: absolutely and without reservation.

So Sasuke says, "You're mistaken. I'm fine."

They return to the reception just as Saiyuri is leaving with her husband. Sasuke watches his cousin accept final well-wishes with grace and composure, but he can't help but think she is lying with every breath, same as he lied to Masami.

* * *

Sakura finds a note under her pillow exactly three weeks after Masanobu's death. It is written in a sharp, unfamiliar hand, neither like Sasuke's neat script nor Naruto's chicken-scratch scrawl. The message is short and forward, and reading it could cost her her life.

_Come to the abandoned warehouse on Cho Street at midnight if you seek justice._

This is a rebel missive, some insurgent's idea of recruitment. She should burn it and pretend she never saw such a thing. It is no surprise to Sakura that there are revolutionaries in Konoha—every year or so the Uchiha convict some poor soul of sedition and make an example of him—but she never imagined that any would bother to contact her, a thirteen-year-old genin with little experience and no influence.

Sakura does burn the note, scatters its ashes in the yard behind her apartment building, and goes about her business. She meets Team 7 for training, shadows Rin at the hospital, plays shogi with Masami (wins twice, loses once), and comes home in time for dinner with her mother. Sakura goes to bed early, determined to sleep through the rendezvous that she was invited to. But she tosses and turns, thinking about Sasuke's grand house and the father she never knew. The high taxes her mother can barely afford to pay and still keep food on the table. Civilians who toil building Konoha's roads and bridges and running its businesses for a fraction the money even a genin makes. The children of the Hyuuga Clan who are branded before they can read, caged birds every one.

_This is stupid_, Sakura thinks, even as she slips out of bed and puts on her street clothes. _I'm stupid_. Her clock reads twenty minutes to twelve; she has time to make it if she hurries.

Cho Street is located on the south side of the village in one of the civilian quarters. Sakura tries to move quickly without looking like she has any particular place to be. It must be past midnight by the time she finds the warehouse, a great metal building that sits on the bank of the Naka River, but surely rebels aren't overly concerned with punctuality. She lingers outside, considers leaving now and returning home. Before cowardice can overcome her, Sakura opens the door.

There's no one inside. The warehouse is utterly empty of anything besides old boxes, dust, and scurrying rats.

At least, that's what she thinks, until she feels someone standing behind her. Sakura turns around, kunai in hand, and comes face to face with Uchiha Obito.

"I see you got my note," he says.

"_Your_ note?" Of all the people she might have expected to be the author of that message, Obito was not one of them.

He smiles and says, "Guilty."

"Why did you contact me?" Sakura asks. "And what is it you want?"

"Because Kakashi has told me enough about you that I guessed you might be sympathetic to the cause, and we need more talented shinobi, no matter how young." He pats her on the shoulder and says, "Come with me, Sakura. I want you to meet the revolution."

She follows him to a hatch at the back of the building, then down rusted iron stairs to a dank basement where there must be a hundred people gathered. Half of them are civilians, but she sees a number of familiar faces, shinobi high ranking and low. The red-headed chunin, Kazue, from two classes ahead of hers at the Academy. Shizune, Tsunade's assistant at the hospital. Yamanaka Inoichi, Akimichi Chouza, and Nara Shikaku. Even Jiraiya, one of the legendary Sannin.

And at the front of the room, speaking to the crowd of insurgents, stands Naruto's parents: Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Thank you guys for all your feedback; every favorite, follow, and review makes me smile. Many thanks to the lovely uchihasass for her awesome beta work, as per usual.

And the quote at the beginning of this chapter is by Albert Camus.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

_Each betrayal begins with trust._

* * *

Sakura's first seditionist meeting teaches her many things: there are rebels all over the country, not just in Konoha, ready to oppose the Hokage's hard-handed rule; there have already been small uprisings in the outer districts, although these were quickly squashed and kept quiet; the Fire Country once had its own daimyo, and if they can oust the Hokage from his position of power over the whole nation, they can reinstate a political leader, a just man who rules without the might of an army behind him. Perhaps the most important lesson she learns, however, is that people are hardly ever what you expect. She would never have guessed that Naruto's parents were disloyal, much less the leaders of a brewing rebellion.

As the meeting disperses, Kushina and Minato walk over to Sakura, both looking irritated. At first she thinks they're angry with her, but then Kushina pokes Obito in the chest and asks, "What did we say? No one under fifteen."

"I thought we should make an exception," Obito says. He turns to Minato. "She's a talented girl, sensei. Rin told me that she healed a major wound after only a few weeks of medical ninjutsu training. Not many genin could have done that, and we'll need good medics when the war starts."

_The war?_ Sakura doesn't see how a room of a hundred discontented civilians and shinobi could hope to wage war on the Uchiha, but she thinks it's probably more prudent to keep this to herself.

Kushina pokes Obito again. "Look at her! She's half a child."

"I'm not a child, Kushina-san," Sakura says, as respectfully as she can. "I'm a ninja of Konoha."

Obito laughs. "She's right about that. Childhood dies the day you earn your hitai-ate, no matter how young you are."

Kushina sighs and scratches the back of her head (a gesture that is so like Naruto that Sakura almost smiles).

Minato looks at Sakura and asks, "Are you sure you're ready for this? We'll ask you to do things that are dangerous, things you may find distasteful. Do you understand?"

She nods. "Yes, Minato-san. I want to help however I can."

"Good," he says. "Because I think Obito is right. You can be a great asset to us, Sakura."

"Thank you."

"There's already something you can do," Minato says, and Kushina looks at her husband sharply. "Sasuke lives under the Hokage's roof, and he's privy to things that Fugaku would tell no one else. Find a way to get him to share that information."

"You want me to spy on Sasuke?" she asks.

"Yes," Minato says flatly. "It shouldn't be difficult. Naruto tells me that he's opened up to you since you saved his life."

Sakura thinks of Sasuke, her teammate, whose trust is so hard-won. It would be the deepest violation of their friendship if she betrayed him in such a way.

"If you can't do this, we have no use for you," he says simply.

She always thought of Naruto's father as a gentle man, but she supposes there must be some measure of unkindness in anyone who can kill as easily as Namikaze Minato.

Yet, there is a detached and logical part of her which understands the importance of this task. So she nods and says, "I'll do it."

Sakura sneaks back home and climbs into bed, too tired to think much about this decision she's made. The ramifications of taking the side of rebels over the side of law and order. The consequences she'll face for choosing her ideals over her friendship.

* * *

They're lounging in the grass, drinking bottles of water after a long training session, when Kakashi says, "I'm signing all of you up for the chunin exams."

"What?" Naruto asks. "Really?" He sits up straighter, ignoring the stitch in his side and new bruises from six hours of taijutsu practice.

Kakashi smiles and says, "Yes, Naruto, _really_. The exams are in a month, in Suna, so you three better get to work if you don't want to humiliate yourselves."

"But we've only been genin for, what, half a year?" Sakura asks. "Isn't it sort of early for us to be promoted?"

Kakashi waves away her questions with a lazy flick of his wrist. "You're not going to pass," he says. "Hardly anyone does their first time around, but it's good experience all the same."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Sasuke says.

Naruto smiles. "I'm gonna pass! I'll get Otousan to teach me the rasengan! Then nobody will be able to beat me."

Kakashi chuckles. "Says the boy who almost failed his Academy graduation."

Naruto throws his empty water bottle at Kakashi. "You're a bad sensei."

Kakashi catches the bottle, pops Naruto on top of the head with it, and says, "I know."

After they're dismissed, Naruto drags Sasuke and Sakura to Ichiraku. They complain all the way there, but his teammates eat their ramen eagerly enough once Teuchi serves it.

"Do you really think we're going to fail?" Sakura asks.

"I can't afford to," Sasuke says. "My father would skin me alive if I embarrassed him like that in front of the Kazekage."

"We'll pass," Naruto says around a mouthful of noodles. "We're the best team in Konoha."

Sasuke snorts. "Ever heard of a little group called the Sannin?"

"Course I have. My father's sensei is one of them, yanno. But we're gonna be even better." Naruto adjusts his hitai-ate, and then he turns up his bowl to drink the broth.

Sakura laughs. "Right. _I'll_ exceed Tsunade, the best kunoichi in Konoha."

Sasuke shrugs. "You might."

She grins, and Naruto feels the slightest pang of jealousy. Sakura cares for him as a teammate, he knows that, but she does not smile at him the way she smiles at Sasuke.

* * *

Otousan is in a foul mood. He complains about Okaasan's rice porridge at breakfast and snaps at Sasuke for opening his study door without knocking. Then he pinches the bridge of his nose, as if warding off a headache, and says, "I'm sorry, son. Come in."

Sasuke takes a seat in one of the stiff-backed chairs his father favors. "Is something wrong?" he asks.

Otousan taps his pen against a pile of paperwork on his desk. "You don't breathe a word of this to your mother. Understood?"

"Of course," Sasuke says.

"There have been disturbances in some of the outlying districts recently, and I've just received a report that there was another riot in Rokagita last night," Otousan says. "Civilians broke the windows of the police station, and some of the shinobi stationed there refused to keep order."

"What are you going to do to them?" Sasuke asks.

"I'm going to let the local authorities deal with the civilians, but I'll strip those shinobi of their hitai-ates and jail them for two months for insubordination. But that's not all, Sasuke." Otousan rubs his temple and says, "Your brother was there in Rokagita. When the police tried to contain the riot, he killed three of their officers and incapacitated a dozen more."

Sasuke sits stock-still in his father's uncomfortable chair, quietly searching for a way to justify his brother's actions. Perhaps the police had used excessive force on the crowd? Whatever his reasons, Itachi has destroyed any possibility of returning to Konoha without prosecution. Now he's more than a mere missing-nin; he's an enemy of the state, a traitor to their clan.

Later that day, Sasuke meets Naruto and Sakura on the roof of a bakery near the northeastern edge of the village. They can see the Konoha gates from here, and so they spend the cool afternoon watching shinobi come and go, trading weapons, and eating fresh bread. Sakura sits between him and Naruto, as she often does, and he finds himself looking at the long line of her neck, the curve of her cheek, the hollow at the base of her throat. Her eyes, he thinks, are the exact color of the pale underside of a leaf.

"I'll give you two shuriken for that wire," Naruto says.

Sakura smiles her most charming smile. "I'll give you three."

It's the finest wire from among a set of weapons his father gifted him last year, but Sasuke has a weakness for good shuriken, and Sakura keeps hers in the best of shape. They shine under the winter sunlight, highly polished and perfectly sharp. "Hn. Fine."

They make the exchange while Naruto mutters something about Sakura's pretty face getting her whatever she wants. She just laughs and asks if her pretty face will get her one of the Yellow Flash's famous hiraishin kunai.

"Not for every shuriken you own," Naruto says. "Otousan won't even let me touch one of those kunai."

Sakura offers Sasuke a small vial of aconite in exchange for some of his senbon, and even though it isn't the best deal (he has a dozen different kinds of poison at home), when she bites her lip and looks at him with her clear, green eyes, Sasuke agrees.

Perhaps Naruto has a point about Sakura using her looks to bargain.

Spending time with his team distracts him for a while, but as the sun sets lower in the sky and the prospect of home looms closer, Sasuke can't stop thinking about Itachi. He wonders where his brother is today. If he's inciting another riot in some outer district of the Fire Country, undermining the order their family has worked so hard to maintain.

"Hey," Naruto says, "are you listening to me at all?"

"No." Sasuke plays with one of his new shuriken, turning the razor-edged star over and over in his hand, until one of the points pricks his palm.

"I said I have to go. Otousan is teaching me the rasengan." Naruto smiles proudly, packs up his things, and says goodbye, leaving Sasuke and Sakura alone on the roof.

They sit side by side, watching the sun dip beneath the western horizon, red and orange and gold sinking into the blue. The smell of bread, of yeast and warmth, wafts up from the bakery below, and Sasuke hears the bustle of people on the street quieting as night falls. His mother and father will worry if he doesn't come home soon, but Sasuke wants to stay here. To listen to crickets chirping, owls hooting, the evening breeze rustling through the leaves. Sounds that belong to the darkness.

Sakura leans her head on his shoulder—a habit she has developed of late, one which Sasuke doesn't quite have the discipline to correct. But she must know it's not appropriate to rest against him so closely, so intimately, because she only does this when they have a rare, private moment together. Still, he enjoys the soft burden of her body pressed close, the springtime scent she carries on her skin. Sakura's presence soothes Sasuke, makes him feel the slightest bit better. Less worried and more at ease.

"Don't you need to go?" Her breath tickles the sensitive skin of his neck, and Sasuke shivers.

"Yeah, but I don't want to," he says. "What about you?"

"There's nobody waiting for me. Okaasan's on a mission." Then Sakura asks, "Why don't you want to go home?"

He thinks of his mother, who has barely left her bed in three days. Every time he comes to her room she's buried beneath the covers with the lights off and curtains drawn, and when he asks if she needs anything Okaasan pretends not to hear him. And then there's Itachi.

He should lie or say it's none of her business, but this is Sakura, the girl who saved his life, and Sasuke knows with a certainty borne from trust that he can confide in her safely. So he tells her about the riot in Rokagita and what his brother did there, the men who died by Itachi's hand.

"He can never come home now," Sasuke whispers, and saying it out loud somehow makes it more real.

Sakura wraps her arms around his waist, pulling him into a gentle hug. "I'm sorry," she says.

He feels her fists grasping the back of his shirt, her apology warm on his throat. Sasuke puts a hand in her cherry blossom hair and cradles her head against his shoulder. It's getting cold, and Sakura burrows closer, until there is no space between them—until he's tempted to just haul her into his lap and hold her for as long as she might allow. He doesn't do it, though, and Sasuke isn't sure whether it's cowardice or self-control that holds him back.

When Sakura pulls away and says, "I'll see you tomorrow, Sasuke-kun," he can see her breath fogging in the winter night air. An evanescent promise that dissipates a heartbeat after the sound of her voice.

* * *

It's cold and dark now, the crescent moon hanging overhead amidst a sea of stars, and Sakura already misses the heat and comfort of Sasuke. She tries to push away that thought, to not even consider him, this boy she quietly adores more and more every day.

She walks around Naruto's block once, twice, three times, circling her own indecision, before she goes to his house and knocks on the front door, three quick raps against the wood that she half-hopes no one will hear. Then Kushina answers, her long red hair piled on top of her head in the largest bun Sakura has ever seen, and invites her inside.

"Naruto isn't here right now. Minato took him to the training grounds to practice—my husband thinks I don't know that he's teaching our son the rasengan, but I do." Kushina smiles and says, "Men. They think they're so sneaky."

Sakura twists the fabric of her skirt between trembling hands. "I'm not here to see Naruto."

"Oh." Kushina's smile slips. She tucks a fallen lock of hair behind her ear and says, "Let's sit down then."

Sakura perches on the edge of a living room chair, ready to jump up and leave at the first provocation, because she knows she shouldn't be here. That whatever greater good it might serve, if she betrays Sasuke's confidence she will regret it for the rest of her life. Kushina doesn't push, doesn't ask any questions. She just takes a seat on the couch and waits for Sakura to speak.

_If I'm doing the right thing, why does this feel so wrong?_

She opens her mouth and finds that she has no words, stillborn treachery stalled on her tongue. She starts gasping, quick and shallow, and for some reason Sakura remembers the acting classes she took at the Academy. How she learned to conjure a counterfeit smile. To laugh, to flirt, to frown. Crying, Iruka-sensei said, never starts in the eyes. Tears are born in the breath.

She's sobbing before she knows it, tastes the salt of guilt and grief on her lips, and wraps her arms around her middle. "Sasuke-kun said something," she whispers, so softly that Kushina leans forward to hear better. Sakura wipes her face, knuckles away her tears like a child, and tells Naruto's mother everything. When she finishes, it feels like the pit of her is hollow, as if she gave Kushina more than Sasuke's secrets. As if she threw away a part of herself, some vital piece of her person that she'll never get back.

"Thank you," Kushina says. "That's useful information, Sakura, and it helps us sort out who our allies are outside of Konoha."

Good. It means her betrayal has meaning, at least. A purpose and place among the things to come.

"I know that wasn't easy for you." Kushina stands, walks over to Sakura, and puts a hand on her shoulder. "It probably doesn't feel like it right now, but you made the right choice."

_Did I?_ She isn't so sure.

* * *

Thirty genin, their senseis, the Hokage, and a dozen jounin escorts leave Konoha at dawn. They head west, the rising sun at their backs, running through frosted forest. Silver rime coats the green grass, and it's just cold enough that Naruto can see his breath misting in the early morning air. He stays with Team 7, but he looks over his shoulder every so often, checking to see if Otousan is still at the back of the group. It takes the whole day to reach the border, to go from the wooded Fire Country to the rolling hills and winding streams of the riverlands. The Hokage pushes them through dusk, into the early hours of the night, and by the time he calls for everyone to make camp the land has changed again. Now there is nothing but flat, brown savanna, endless grassland that stretches in every direction.

Naruto doesn't draw first watch—that honor goes to Rin, Hinata, and one of the Uchiha jounin, who each take a point on the perimeter of the camp to keep a lookout from—but he realizes quickly enough that he can't sleep. He turns over, trying to find a comfortable spot on the hard ground, but he keeps thinking about his impending exams. The first test starts the day after tomorrow, and he still hasn't mastered the rasengan. _I'll figure it out before the finals_. All he has to do is make it past the first two rounds, then he'll have more time to practice. At least, that's what his father said.

Naruto gets up, brushes the grass off his clothes, and walks toward the edge of the camp. He's silent on light feet, but Hinata still knows he's there. Without turning around, she asks, "What are you doing up, Naruto-kun?"

He sits next to her and stretches out his legs. "Nervous about exams," he says.

With her Byakugan activated, the pupils of Hinata's wide eyes are more distinct than usual. Naruto thinks there is something both terrifying and beautiful about the Hyuugas' dojutsu, and he wonders what it must be like to see everything, inside and out. To know at a glance the inner workings of a clock, the mechanics of a shinobi's chakra network, the secrets of a human heart. Perhaps this is why her clan is such a calm, collected bunch; nothing ever surprises them.

"Me too," Hinata whispers. "I'm afraid I'll hold back my team."

"No way. You're going to do great, Hinata-chan," Naruto says. "What do you wanna bet we both get promoted?"

"You—you really think that will happen?" she asks.

Naruto grins and says, "I do."

Hinata fidgets, bites her lip, then says, "I wish I was more like you. You always…"

"I always what?" he asks.

"You always believe in yourself, and in other people too."

Naruto shrugs. "It's no big deal."

Hinata looks at the ground instead of at him. When she speaks, her voice is so soft it could be lost on the wind. "I don't think you know how special you are, Naruto-kun."

He scratches the back of his head, a little embarrassed, and says, "Thanks."

Naruto and Hinata don't talk much after this. They just sit, side by side, looking out across the great grass plane before them, and for once, the quiet doesn't bother Naruto. It's more natural to Hinata than speaking, he thinks. She seems less anxious when conversation isn't required of her, and when her watch is up, she even smiles at him.

"Goodnight," he says.

She whispers, "Thanks for sitting with me."

Naruto returns to Team 7, settles down in his place to the left of Sakura, and falls asleep right away. He dreams of home—the four carved faces of the Hokage monument, the singular swing at the Academy where he so often sat—until Kakashi wakes him by upending a canteen of water over his head.

Naruto sits up, hair soaking wet, shocked by the cold, and shouts, "What was that for!"

Sakura laughs as if this is the funniest thing she's ever seen, and even Sasuke, that humorless bastard, is smirking.

"You wouldn't get up," Kakashi says simply. "Now grab your things. We're breaking camp."

There are times, like now, when Naruto thinks he might hate his sensei a little bit.

It's still twilight when their group sets out again, and by full sunup the morning light shines not on savanna, but on a sea of sand. Golden waves rise in every direction, and the sky is a clear, cloudless blue. The desert is vast, unchanging, each mile ahead identical to the mile before. There are no rivers or trees to break the monotony, only the endless stretch of land that hasn't been kissed by rain in a generation.

The white sun above is relentless, over-bright. Naruto has grown used to long trips, to pushing his body beyond its limits, but running in this arid heat is unlike anything he's ever done, and he finds himself wishing that every league will be the last.

Night is encroaching by the time they reach Suna, a village cradled in a canyon and bathed in dying daylight. Everything seems impossibly small from the cliff's edge, ribboned streets winding between thousands of sand dollhouses. _It's a wheel_, Naruto thinks. Suna appears almost perfectly circular, triangular segments of the village divided by arrow-straight roads, like spokes.

Their party circles around to the west side, the only place where there's a natural opening in the rock. A pair of Sand shinobi open the gate and let them through. A lackey of the Kazegake's waits for them. He bows to Fugaku-sama, welcomes the Leaf contingent to Sunagakure, and leads them into the village.

Naruto can't keep up with where they're going. This monochromatic village couldn't be any more different from colorful Konoha, and every building they pass seems to look the same as those around it, nearly as disorienting as the desert itself. Finally, they come to a stop before a tall inn, and their Sand guide says, "Make yourselves comfortable here. The exams begin tomorrow morning. Please report to the second floor of the Academy promptly at eight o'clock for registration."

No sooner than they've settled into their room, the Hokage fetches his son to attend a dinner with the Kazekage's family. His teammate's shoulders stiffen—Sasuke hates this sort of thing, Naruto knows, formal occasions where he is seen as nothing but the second child suddenly thrust into an heir's position—but he follows his father obediently enough.

* * *

Sasuke is seated across from Temari and Kankuro, who eat little and say less throughout the meal. The kages speak of war, taxes, and politics—things more alike than not, Otousan told his sons on many an occasion—and although they are civil enough, Sasuke gets the distinct impression that, allies or not, his father and the leader of the Sand don't like each other very much.

Between the third course and the fourth, Otousan asks, "Gaara couldn't join us?" There's something almost purposefully provocative in his tone, as if he knows precisely why Rasa-sama's third child is not present.

The Kazekage smiles sharply. "My youngest is a wayward son. I imagine you'd understand that better than most, Fugaku."

Whatever amusement briefly lit his father's features is extinguished. He scowls and tries to turn the talk back to taxes, but Rasa-sama interrupts him, saying, "What's this I hear about riots in the Fire Country?"

Sasuke stills, a spoon of mushroom soup suspended in the air between the fine porcelain bowl and his mouth.

Otousan waves a dismissive hand. "Minor incidences, undoubtedly blown out of proportion by rumor."

The Kazekage shrugs, takes a bite of rice. "But there are no rumors, are there? Your people have done a remarkable job of making sure the matter stays hush-hush."

"Clearly not remarkable enough," Otousan says, "if the news has reached Suna."

Rasa-sama laughs. "Don't go firing your Ministers of Misinformation, or whoever it is you have working to keep your people in the dark. I have friends in Fire who owe me favors, just as you have your own friends in Wind, I'm sure."

_Friends. What a nice euphemism for spies._

Otousan takes a breath. "Rest assured that Konoha's rule remains as stable as ever."

Sasuke is beginning to hear the words beneath the words. What his father means is that Konoha is strong, and that Suna had better not double-cross the Leaf, unless they want to face the might of the Uchiha.

"I won't lose sleep over it," the Kazekage promises. "Though how you keep a firm grip on a whole country I can't imagine. One village is quite enough for me."

"The Fire daimyos were a selfish, corrupt series of politicians without any sense for what it takes to protect a nation. My ancestors had little choice but remove them. It was that or see our homeland fall apart."

"I'm sure," Rasa-sama says.

On the walk back to the inn, Otousan curses the Kazekage, too quietly for anyone but Sasuke to hear. "He's a foul man whose arrogance killed his wife and made a monster out his own son. If we didn't need this alliance with Suna I swear I'd have him assassinated."

Sasuke's father catches him by the shoulder, stopping him in the middle of the street. "You have to pass these exams. You have to show Rasa and all of his people that the future of the Leaf, of the Uchiha, is not a legacy to be trifled with. You understand?"

He nods. "I'll do it, I promise. I can make you proud."

_I'll be the best because I have to be_, Sasuke thinks. _There isn't any other choice._

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Thank you uchihasass for being the world's most awesome beta! And thank you to everyone who's reading this for your patience. The quote at the beginning of this chapter is from the Phish song "Farmhouse."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

_The fiercest anger of all, the most incurable,_

_Is that which rages in the place of dearest love._

* * *

Because Sasuke is a relentless bastard, Team 7 wakes early and reports to the Academy at quarter to eight. They're alone for a little while, but then others begin to show up: the rest of the rookies, older Konoha genin, and a number of shinobi from Suna, Ame, Tani, Iwa, and Taki, all with their foreign hitai-ates. By eight o'clock, there must be close to two hundred shinobi gathered in Room 201. The proctor takes all of their paperwork, and she doesn't wait another minute after they've registered to lead the assembled genin out of the Academy and back into the village.

"Where d'you think she's taking us?" Naruto asks.

"We'll find out soon enough," Sakura says.

They follow the proctor to a tall building with boarded-up windows, where she divides the genin into two groups. She gestures toward Team 7's side and says, "You are the Tsuki Faction. Your job will be to infiltrate and take this base, using whatever means necessary."

Then she turns to the second group and says, "You are the Taiyo Faction. You are tasked with holding the base, no matter what."

The proctor smiles at them, but there's a sharp edge to her expression that Naruto doesn't like. "This test lasts two hours, and at the end, whoever holds the greatest territory within the base passes."

"What about the other faction?" Masami asks.

"The losing faction fails the chunin exams."

"What!" Naruto shouts. "But that's not fair! What if you do really good but your faction doesn't—"

The proctor shrugs. "Well that's just too bad, isn't it?"

Naruto starts to say more, but Sasuke catches him by the arm and whispers, "Shut up, you idiot. Want to piss off the proctor before we even start?"

There's more sense in that than Naruto would like to admit. He rips his arm from Sasuke's grasp and says, "Fine."

Team 8 is on the Tsuki side, same as Team 7, but Teams 5 and 10 are Taiyo. No matter how this stage of the exams goes, half the Konoha rookies will fail.

The Taiyo faction are given thirty minutes to man the building and set traps. While they work, the Tsuki squabble over leadership and strategy.

"I should be in charge," says a thirty-something man wearing a Waterfall hitai-ate. "I'm the most senior genin here."

"That doesn't exactly recommend you highly," Sasuke says. "How many times have you failed the chunin exams anyway?"

The man flushes an ugly red and says, "I suppose you think you should be our leader? Some brat barely out of the Konoha Academy."

"Nobody should lead us," Sasuke says calmly. "We'll all have to split up anyway if we want to secure as much of the base as possible, so we're better off moving in smaller, independent groups from the beginning."

A red-haired boy with dark shadows around his eyes looks to the Suna genin. "Do as he says." The Sand shinobi hurry to create nine-man squads by combining their existing teams, and the remaining villages follow this example. Sasuke says to Naruto and Sakura, "Let's ally with Team 8 before anyone else does."

"That's smart," Sakura says. "We worked well together when we captured—well, on our first C-rank mission."

Sasuke pushes through the crowd and says, "I just meant there are only two Byakugan wielders here, and we better snag Hinata before someone else does. Her sight could make the difference in passing and failing these exams."

Naruto doesn't like the way Sasuke said that, as if the Hyuuga heiress' value lies in her kekkei genkai alone. "Hinata's more than her dojutsu."

Sasuke shoots him an irritated glance, then says, "You ask her to team with us."

"Why me?"

"Because she won't say no to you."

Whatever Sasuke's motives, Naruto would rather work with Team 8 than anybody else, so he asks Hinata, Kiba, and Shino to join them. An odd-man-out Ame squad fills in the rest of their nine-man team.

Hinata awakens her Byakugan and tells them there's a weak point on the fourth floor where only two shinobi are keeping watch. When the half-hour for prep is up, they scale the back side of the building—and run into a team of genin led by an older Hyuuga boy who obviously saw the same thing Hinata had. He frowns at them and says, "Look for another place to enter. This is ours."

Naruto expects Hinata to say something, but she looks anywhere besides at her kinsman.

"There's no reason we can't work together," Naruto says. "We're on the same side."

The Hyuuga boy stares at him like he's dreadfully stupid. "I'm out for myself, and so is every other ninja here with half a brain."

"Whatever, you can have it," Sakura says. "Maybe you need to take the easy way, but we don't."

As their group continues climbing, Naruto asks Hinata, "Who was that anyway?"

"My cousin Neji." He can tell from the careful tone of her voice and the way she won't meet his eyes that there's much more Hinata isn't saying.

The tallest and strongest of the Ame ninja turns to her and asks, "How many are on the top floor?"

"There are three teams," Hinata says, "same as us."

For all his talk about not wanting leadership, Sasuke sure gets bossy once they reach the roof of the building, deciding how they should enter and which teams should take which opponents once inside. Naruto challenges him because _someone_ ought to question the plan, and Sasuke glares at him. "Have you got any better ideas, dead last?"

"Yeah," Naruto says. "I think we should all move in together. We'll be stronger that way, and it will make them come to us instead of the other way around."

Sasuke scoffs. "That's a great plan if you want to get us surrounded and captured, moron."

"Better than separated and captured!" Naruto shouts. "Bastard."

"Dimwit."

Naruto determines to punch his teammate right in his smug face if he calls him stupid just one more time. "You think you're so much better than everybody because you're the Hokage's son, but you _aren't_. Besides, the whole village knows it's my father who should have been the Yondaime."

"The great Namikaze Minato," Sasuke says dryly. "Son of a bricklayer and a housewife."

Naruto flushes, because it's true that his grandparents were civilians, and he's angry that Sasuke would even bring it up, like this is a thing that should matter. "At least I'm not inbred. What kind of cousin is Masami to you anyway?"

Sasuke draws back to hit him, but Sakura jumps between them and catches his fist. "Don't," she says, "please."

The tension seems to leave Sasuke's body, as if all it takes is Sakura's touch and the sound of her voice to calm him. "Fine. Let's go."

Still, he looks at Naruto coldly, promising reprisal as surely as if he'd spoken aloud.

* * *

In the end, the Tsuki faction holds most of the base, winning the first round of the chunin exams. Sakura is relieved to be on the passing side, but she feels sorry for Masami and Ino who have both been disqualified. Like Naruto, she thinks this is unfair, but there isn't a thing she can do about it.

After she dismisses the Taiyo, the proctor reveals that each individual team's performance was also being judged. She assigns a number between one and ten to every squad, and when she approaches Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto, she says, "You didn't do too bad for Konoha kids. Seven."

"What does this score matter anyway?" Naruto asks. "The first test is over."

The proctor laughs and says, "You'll see tomorrow."

Sakura doubts that this warning bodes well for the second test.

Naruto and Sasuke are still angry, and on the way back to the inn they refuse to speak to each other. Sakura rolls her eyes and says, "This is so childish." When they reach the ryokan, she leaves the boys alone to brood in their room and searches out Masami.

She finds her friend on the first floor, sitting on a couch in the common room, staring at the fire blankly.

"Hey," Sakura says. "You okay?"

Masami doesn't look at her, but she says, "My father's going to be so embarrassed when he hears that I didn't even make it past the first test."

"It's not your fault," Sakura says. She sits next to Masami and puts a careful hand on her shoulder. "You just had the bad luck to be put in the losing faction."

"I guess, but I doubt Otousan's going to care for the details," Masami says. "Did you know that all of my sisters passed their chunin exams the first time?"

"You shouldn't compare yourself to your sisters," Sakura says. "Their accomplishments have nothing to do with yours."

Masami sighs, pulls her legs up and hugs her knees. "I wish I could hate you," she says.

"What?" Sakura asks. "Why would you wish that?"

Masami finally looks at her with dark eyes so much like her cousin's. "You're a stronger kunoichi than me," she says softly. "And I think—I think Sasuke-kun likes you."

Sakura's heart beats harder, faster, but she makes herself laugh a little and say, "That's silly. Sasuke barely even tolerates me and Naruto."

Masami shakes her head. "You don't hear the way he talks about you," she says, and her voice is defeated.

Sakura thinks about the stolen moments she and Sasuke have shared, the tentative touches and lingering looks, and guilt burns in her belly. "You shouldn't worry," she says, and this is true enough, because there's nothing for her and Sasuke. He's promised to Masami, and she's giving his secrets to the rebellion. Even if Sakura wanted to, what sort of future could they possibly build based on lies and betrayal?

_Besides, I don't want him_, she tells herself. _I don't._

"I think I'm going to go to bed," Masami says. "Goodnight."

Sakura returns to Team 7's room only to find it wrecked beyond recognition. Every stick of furniture is broken—the beds, the tables, the dressers—and in the middle of the wreckage sits her teammates. Naruto cradles his left arm, hissing in pain, and Sakura can tell at a glance that it's broken. Sasuke sits silently, eye swollen shut and lip busted, breathing so evenly that, if he wasn't black and blue all over, you'd never guess he'd just been in a brawl.

"I can't believe you two!" Sakura shouts. "Look what you did to this room—look what you did to each other!"

Naruto opens his mouth to say something, but Sakura gives him the sort of warning look one had better heed, and he shuts up.

"You should go find Rin," she says to Naruto. "I could probably mend your arm, but she'd do a much better job."

Then Sakura turns to Sasuke and says, "You I can fix."

Naruto grumbles something about blackening another eye, but he leaves all the same.

Once the door closes behind him, Sakura sits on the floor and asks Sasuke, gently now, "What were you thinking?"

He shakes his head. "I don't know."

_His father is going to kill him when he sees this room. _

She summons chakra to her hands and touches his split lip. It's easy enough to heal, but Sakura finds her fingers reluctant to move away from his mouth. She makes herself tend to his purpling eye, and she uses extra care with this injury, because Sasuke's sight is worth more than her life. He takes off his shirt, and she sees the smattering of bruises across his chest and stomach. She remains steady as she works on him, until Sakura reaches a mark on his lower abdomen, just below his bellybutton, and then her hands begin to tremble. For a moment—just a moment—her jutsu falters, but she recovers quickly.

Sasuke is perfectly still; he might even be holding his breath. Sakura heals him as efficiently and swiftly as she can and says, "There you go. Good as new."

"Thanks," he says.

Kakashi-sensei opens the door without knocking. When he sees the condition of the room, he sighs and says, "I leave you alone for half an hour…"

The innkeeper is most displeased with Team 7 and expels them from her establishment with the promise of a heavy fine to come. They have to find a room at a nearby minshuku, and Sakura does not sleep well in a too-hard bed in this foreign village. She thinks of Masami, Sasuke, and Naruto, and she worries about the second test looming on the morrow.

* * *

Sasuke wakes his team early and drags them, yawning and cursing, to the checkpoint where yesterday's victors were told to assemble. It's a desolate looking spot on the outskirts of Suna, near a golden cliff-face riddled with crevices and caves.

Today's proctor is a tall shinobi with red paint streaked across one cheek. He introduces himself as Kamenashi and says, "There's a temple at the heart of this cave system, and the first ten teams to reach it move on to the next stage. You'll be released in the order of your scores, highest to lowest."

"Dammit," Naruto says. "Now I really wish we'd done better than a seven."

Sasuke notices that Hyuuga Neji's squad and the Kazekage's three children are the only tens.

Then the nines and eights go ahead of them, and Sasuke feels his adrenaline pumping, preparing him for whatever obstacles there are to overcome soon.

"Sevens!" Kamenashi shouts, "Go!"

Sasuke hurries into the nearest mouth of a cave, and he finds that it's pitch black inside, impossible to see. For a moment, he's stunned—because blindness is the thing an Uchiha fears most—but then Sakura performs a quick jutsu, summoning blue flames that seem to emanate light without heat. She cups the brilliant fire in her left hand, and it illuminates enough of the space that Sasuke can see their surroundings again.

They rush deeper into the cave, only to come across a duo of oversized, summoned beasts. The hawk and white tiger attack, but Naruto quickly seals them both, and they move on.

"How big is this place?" Sakura asks, after a half-hour of wandering through twisting passages.

"Maybe we're going the wrong way," Naruto says.

"There's no way to tell," Sasuke says. "Keep moving."

When they round the next corner, Sasuke steps right into a silver mist, and for a moment he's disoriented, lost, confused, but then he closes his eyes, and when he opens them he's no longer in the cave at all.

Konoha is bright and colorful, peaceful and pleasant on a bright summer day. He sees Itachi, smiling with Shisui, and Sasuke knows this isn't real. _It's a genjutsu_, he tells himself, but everything feels so true, so perfect, that he doesn't want to leave. There is his brother, and he knows somehow that in this world, his father is proud of him and his mother is well.

And he has a wife, waiting at home, with their daughter.

Sasuke runs, and his feet carry him down a familiar street to a grand house in the middle of the Uchiha compound. He opens the door, and there's Sakura, much older than he knows her in real life—she must be in her mid-twenties, and so is he—playing with a toddling little girl with round cheeks and chubby legs. Sakura brushes a loose lock of short, pink hair behind her ear and smiles at him. "You're home early," she says.

Sasuke doesn't say anything. _What is this place? _

Sakura stands, walks closer, and hugs him. He allows himself a moment to enjoy the sweetness of contact, the warmth of this woman wrapping her arms around his waist. And while he's letting her hold him, Sasuke realizes exactly what sort of genjutsu he's trapped in: this is his ideal world. A place where his brother is welcome in the village, his parents are at peace with one another, and his father approves of him.

And Sakura is his _wife_.

Sasuke wants to stay, to linger in this false dream as long as he can, because all the broken things are fixed here.

_No_, he thinks. _This isn't real, this isn't real_.

He wakes to a sobbing Sakura, throwing herself across his prone body, clutching his shirt.

"You're heavy," Sasuke says, because her closeness reminds him of the genjutsu, the world where she was his (the world he wants most, but he won't allow himself to think on that further).

"What happened to you?" Naruto asks.

"Genjutsu," Sasuke says. He sits up, stands on shaking legs. "It took me a little while to break it."

Sakura hastily wipes away her tears, gets on her feet, and says, "We didn't know what happened. You just collapsed and nothing I did could wake you."

"Well I'm fine now," Sasuke lies, because even though that genjutsu shook him, he has to get himself together if they're going to pass this test. "We need to move."

They continue on, but all Sasuke can think about is the counterfeit world he left behind in the silver mist.

They run into a Sand team, but they're able to incapacitate the Suna nin easily enough. When their squad finally reaches the temple, a monkey wearing a Noh mask sits before the entrance. It's huge, a giant black-furred ape, and when Naruto tries to seal it, the creature only laughs and pushes him back.

"Answer my riddle correctly and you may pass," the monkey says, and his tone is surprisingly soft, a whisper of a voice. "If you have me, you want to share me. If you share me, you haven't got me. What am I?"

"How many chances do we have to answer?" Naruto asks.

"One," the monkey says.

Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura huddle together and quietly throw out every answer they can think of, no matter how stupid or strange.

"Maybe a meal?" Naruto says, then he runs his hand through his hair. "Nah, cause who _wants _to share their food?"

Sasuke ignores Naruto. "Money?"

"No," Sakura says, "It's not anything like that. Think less concretely."

"Love!" Naruto says. "That could be it."

Sasuke resists the urge to hit him upside his blonde head. "You still have love when you share it, moron."

"Oh," Naruto says, "I guess that's true."

"What about power?" Sasuke asks.

Sakura shakes her head. She closes her eyes, and then a moment later she smiles and says, "I've got it."

"You know the answer?" Naruto asks. "What is it?"

Sakura approaches the temple's guardian and says, "A secret."

Sasuke is on the verge of shouting at her—because why didn't she run her answer by he and Naruto first?—when the monkey speaks. "That is correct," he says. "You may pass."

* * *

Team 7 is the tenth to reach the temple, just barely scraping their way into the next stage of the second test: one-on-one matches.

"Go, Sakura-chan!" Naruto shouts.

She smiles up at him, then focuses her attention on her opponent. It's a long and bloody fight, but in the end Sakura stands over Kankuro, the Kazekage's son, victorious. She heals herself casually while they watch Sasuke's match against another Sand shinobi. Naruto half-wants his arrogant teammate to fail, but of course he doesn't. Sasuke moves fluidly through his kata like he was born to win, and in the end, the Suna nin lies unconscious at his feet. He isn't even out of breath when he returns to them and says, "Beat that, dead last."

He hopes that he gets to face Sasuke before these exams are over. Their brawl last night came to a draw, and Naruto won't be satisfied until he's beaten him.

His own match is against a Rain shinobi. Naruto doesn't fight with the sort of ease Sasuke displayed, but he does win. Afterward, Sakura hugs him and says, "Now we're all going to the third test!"

Before he can celebrate much, Hinata is called forward to fight against Neji, and Naruto can tell right away that something is wrong. Hinata never seems confident, but now she looks downright cowed, and her cousin is staring at her like he hates her. It's an ugly fight from start to finish. Neji beats her down, first with words, then with gentle fists, and by the time it's over, Hinata has to be carried away, coughing up blood, hanging onto life by a thread.

_No, no, no_, Naruto thinks. _It isn't fair! She fought so hard…_

Neji has the gall to tell him that he's a failure and always will be. Naruto gets down on one knee and runs his fingers through the blood on the floor—Hinata's blood—and vows to win when he faces Neji.

The next morning, he goes to the Suna hospital to visit Hinata. Sakura told him he should bring something, so Naruto stops by a florist on the way and buys a potted sunflower.

"Hey," he says. "How you doing?"

Hinata gives him a gentle smile and tries to sit up straighter, but she coughs and falls back against her pillows.

"Don't strain yourself, okay?" Naruto he sets the sunflower on the table beside her bed.

"Thank you," Hinata says. Her soft voice sounds weak, strained, and she doesn't look well, but at least she's stable and on the mend.

"I'm so glad to see you doing better, Hinata-chan." Naruto sits in the chair by the window and says, "I was really worried about you yesterday."

"The medics say I'm going to be fine. It's just—just going to take a while before I can get back on my feet." Hinata coughs again, covers her mouth, and blushes.

"Neji shouldn't have hurt you like that," Naruto says, and the anger he felt watching their match comes back all at once. "He's your family."

"I-It's complicated." She fidgets with her thin blanket, looking at her hands instead of at him.

"How can you defend him? He almost _killed _you!" Naruto realizes he's shouting and lowers his voice. "All I mean is, he doesn't deserve that. What he deserves is to have his ass kicked."

_And I'm the one who's gonna do it_, he thinks.

"Neji's life hasn't been easy, Naruto-kun," Hinata says patiently. "There's more to it than I can explain."

"What do you mean? Why can't you tell me?"

"It's—um—it's clan business," she says.

It's always like that with the Hyuuga. They have their own little world in Konoha, a compound with rules apart from the rest of the village, and outsiders are never welcome. Naruto supposes friendship only goes so far when it comes up against clan loyalties.

"Right," he says, standing. "Well, I hope you feel better soon, Hinata."

"You're—you're leaving?" she asks, and he doesn't think he's imagining the disappointment in her voice.

"Yeah, I've gotta train for the next stage of the exams," Naruto says. _It's gonna take a lot of work if I want to beat Neji or Sasuke_.

* * *

The next two weeks are full of training, learning the chidori and practicing new taijutsu forms. Sasuke works from dawn to dusk every day, and he knows his teammates are equally busy. Sakura hones her medic skills with Rin and pesters Kakashi for new genjutsu and ninjutsu to work on, while Naruto is with his father, trying to master the rasengan—and for his own chances in the third exam, Sasuke hopes he doesn't succeed.

He's kept his distance from his teammates since the second test. Sasuke avoids Naruto because he's irritating and Sakura because he doesn't know what to think since he saw her as his wife, as the mother of his child, in that genjutsu. He tells himself it wasn't real and it means nothing, but whenever he sees her he remembers the vision of their family, and it makes him feel uncomfortable and guilty.

On the morning of the third test, Sakura wishes both he and Naruto good luck, and Sasuke nods at her.

The final exam takes place in an arena on the eastern edge of the village. It's big, much larger than the one in Konoha, nothing but unrelenting sand and high walls. Sasuke sees his father, sitting to the left of the Kazekage, frowning down at the proceedings.

_I have to win_, he thinks. _Nothing less will be good enough_.

The first round goes by quickly, and Konoha's genin represent their village well. Neji defeats his own teammate, Lee, while Shino beats a Sand shinobi, and every member of Team 7 progresses to the next level as well. Naruto's match against an Earth ninja is a close call, but the knucklehead pulls through.

The final eight comes down to the five remaining Konoha shinobi, Gaara and Temari, and a Rain nin who has been moving through the exams with efficiency and cruelty in equal measure. His name is Ikematsu, he's the oldest and largest of the remaining genin, and Sakura faces him in the next match.

"Go back to Konoha, little girl," he sneers.

"Not a chance," Sakura says, and then she rushes him.

Ikematsu performs a jutsu too quickly for Sasuke to follow the hand seals, but a moment later he's summoned a cloak of water about himself. Tendrils of it reach out and slash at Sakura like a whip, but she dodges the attacks. She's fast and clever, and Ikematsu can't seem to touch her. Sakura summons earth giants, just like the ones their team fought on their first C-rank mission. (Kakashi must have copied the technique and passed it on to her.)

It doesn't take Ikematsu long to discover how to incapacitate the creatures, but while he's busy dealing with them, he can't avoid the rain of shuriken that Sakura sends his way. One blade scrapes his cheek, and another lodges in his shoulder. He shouts, and a moment later there's a trio of ice shards shooting at Sakura, sharp as daggers. She avoids two, but the third hits her in the thigh, digging deep into her flesh, and she cries out. It's the most pained sound he's ever heard from her, and there's so much blood that it terrifies him.

While Ikematsu fights the last of the earth giants, Sakura pulls the ice shard from her leg and starts healing herself, staunching the flow of blood and repairing muscle. She gets back on her feet, limping, and the fight continues.

"Come on, Sakura-chan!" Naruto says.

She holds her own for a good half-hour, despite her injured leg, but Ikematsu is bigger and stronger and more experienced, and Sasuke can see already where this is headed.

He gets her on the ground, stabs a kunai into the half-healed wound on her thigh, and Sakura screams. Tears streak down her cheeks, and still she hits at Ikematsu's chest, tries to shove him off of her. He punches her, hard, and for a moment she's too dazed to do anything.

"Give up!" the Ame ninja shouts.

He's got Sakura pinned, her wrists captured in one of his strong hands, and there's not a thing she can do to defend herself—but she spits in his face anyway. Ikematsu punches her again, once, twice, three times, again and again until Sasuke loses count, and Kakashi has to grab him to keep him from going to help Sakura.

The match ends when she loses consciousness, her right cheek purple and bloated, her eye swollen shut, and Sasuke has never been so angry in his life. As soon as Kakashi releases him, he jumps down into the arena and runs at Ikematsu, summoning lightning to his left hand. The young man's grey eyes go wide, and he's too slow—maybe from his injuries, perhaps from surprise—to avoid the chidori that takes him in the stomach.

Sasuke feels his fist penetrating flesh, searing through skin and muscle into the guts beneath, and he doesn't care how the bastard screams, he deserves it for nearly killing Sakura.

"Sasuke!"

He hears three distinct voices shouting his name, Kakashi and Naruto and Otousan, and there's a whole crowd of horrified spectators, but Sasuke doesn't stop.

Three Sand nin have to pull him off of Ikematsu, who drops to his knees, blood dribbling past his lips, clutching at his stomach to keep his own insides from spilling out.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **So this story is back in business! I'm sorry for the horrendously long gap between updates, but I've been very busy both IRL and with my other fanfics. I also struggled greatly with the chunin exams, but hopefully now that they're mostly over, I can get the characters back to Konoha and explore the dynamics we left behind there. I've said to a couple of people that this story is going to be my fanfiction magnum opus, and I'm so glad that readers seem to enjoy it. I appreciate every favorite and follow, and reviews absolutely make my day, so thank you to everyone for their feedback.

For those who are curious, the quote at the beginning of this chapter is by Euripides.

Now I'm going to get back to work on Chapter Six. :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

_No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they'd die for._

* * *

"What were you thinking?" Otousan asks. He doesn't raise his voice, but Sasuke can hear the anger in his words just the same.

He's standing in his father's room at the inn. Sasuke crosses his arms over his chest and says, "That Ame ninja could have killed Sakura."

"And _you _could have killed _him_," his father snaps.

"It's too bad I didn't," Sasuke says, stubborn and refusing to show remorse he doesn't feel.

Otousan shakes his head. "You're a stupid, careless boy," he says. "Do you have any idea the position you've put me in with the Rain village? My own son almost slaughtered one of their most promising young shinobi. They're not going to take kindly to that."

"Who cares about Ame?" Sasuke says. "Rain would never dare to pick a fight with us. We'd crush them and they know it."

"All of this mess, and over what?" his father asks. "Some worthless girl who isn't even from our clan."

"Sakura isn't worthless," Sasuke says, before he can stop himself. "She's a great kunoichi and a good person."

Otousan narrows his eyes and walks closer. "If she'd been more powerful, strong enough to take care of herself, we wouldn't be in this mess. Now you're disqualified from the exams."

Sasuke wants to say that isn't Sakura's fault, but he knows that the more he defends her the worse this whole situation is going to look.

"Is there anything going on between you and that girl?" his father asks. "And you better tell me the truth, Sasuke."

"No, she's just my teammate," he says.

(Once again, Sasuke thinks of the genjutsu, his vision of the future with Sakura as his wife, but he pushes it away.)

"Good," Otousan says. "Keep it like that."

Sasuke nods. "Yes, sir."

He isn't allowed to watch the rest of the matches, but he finds out later that Naruto ended up fighting Neji after all, and won. Gaara defeated Shino, then his sister, and so the final fight came down to the sons of the Kazekage and the Yellow Flash. Sasuke can barely believe it when he hears that Naruto—his idiot teammate, bottom of their class at the Academy—mastered the rasengan and won the chunin exams.

He can't bring himself to say congratulations. Not when Naruto is sure to be promoted, while Sasuke remains a genin.

He wants to visit Sakura, but he's already on thin ice with his father. So Sasuke waits for her to be released, waits three long days, until she shows up at their shared room, looking pale and tired but otherwise healthy. She hugs him, and Sasuke can't help it, he puts his arms around Sakura and holds her tight. Buries his face in her soft, pink hair and breathes in the scent of her.

"I heard what you did," Sakura whispers, "but I don't understand why."

Sasuke can't begin to give her a truthful answer, to explain what she means to him, so all he says is, "You're my friend."

She lets go and steps away from him. "I'm sorry you were disqualified. If it makes you feel any better, I didn't make chunin either. So I guess we can retake the exams together."

The Konoha shinobi return to their village with three new chunin in tow: Naruto, Neji, and Shino. Otousan doesn't speak one word to him throughout the whole trip back to the Leaf, but that's all right, because he doesn't have anything to say either.

At home, Sasuke is surprised to find Okaasan in the garden, pulling up the dry, dead weeds that she had neglected all summer. She smiles when she sees him and asks, "So, how did the exams go?"

"Not well," Sasuke says, but he can't be irritated about this because it has been so long since he saw his mother looking this happy.

"That's okay," she says. Okaasan stands, takes off her gloves, and runs her fingers through his hair fondly. "You'll pass next time. Most shinobi fail their first chunin exams."

_Itachi didn't_, Sasuke thinks, but he keeps this to himself. "You seem better," he says.

His mother smiles again. "I feel better."

* * *

When Sakura opens her front door, she finds one of the Sannin standing on the steps.

"Can I come in?" Tsunade asks.

"Yes," Sakura says, and she hurries to step aside. "Would you like anything to drink? Water or tea?"

"No," Tsunade says. She takes a seat on the couch, and Sakura is mildly embarrassed by the shabby state of the living room. "Is your mother home?"

"She's on a mission," Sakura says, "but if there's a message you want to leave with me for her—"

Tsunade shakes her head. "I'm here to talk to you, not Mebuki."

"Oh." Sakura can't imagine what this legendary woman might have to say to _her_, but she sits on the other end of the couch and waits, attentive and quiet, for Tsunade to speak.

"I was at the chunin exams," she says. "You fought well against that Rain shinobi."

Sakura feels her cheeks grow warm. She'd known Tsunade was in the crowd, had seen her watching, but she never would have expected one of the Sannin to be impressed by her performance.

"I lost," Sakura says. "And I didn't even get promoted."

Tsunade waves her hand. "The examiners are a bunch of pigs who never pass girls their first time around, unless they're Uchiha. You should be proud of your performance. You made it to the final eight, and not many new medics could heal a wound like the one you sustained in such a short amount of time."

"Thank you," Sakura says.

"I want you to be my apprentice," Tsunade says bluntly. "I'm not going to lie; it'll be hard work, much harder than what you've been practicing under that lazy Copy Ninja. And I'm not half so patient as Rin. But if you agree, I'll make you the best medic and strongest kunoichi of your generation."

It takes a moment for Sakura to catch her breath. "Of course I'll be your apprentice!" she says. "I'll do my best to deserve your teachings."

Tsunade nods. "Then meet me at the Tenth Training Ground tomorrow at noon. Don't be late."

Once Tsunade leaves, Sakura runs across the village to Naruto's house. Her newly-promoted teammate lets her inside and asks, "What's up, Sakura-chan?"

"You'll never guess what just happened!" Sakura says, and her cheeks almost ache from smiling so widely. "_Tsunade_ just asked me to be her apprentice."

Naruto laughs, picks her up, and spins her around. "That makes all three of us," he says, laughing.

"What do you mean 'all three of us'?" Sakura asks.

Naruto sets her back on her feet and says, "Jiraiya just asked to be my new sensei—you barely missed him—and Sasuke told me this morning that he's starting an apprenticeship with Orochimaru. So we're all studying under the Sannin!"

"Wow," Sakura says. "That's really something." She hugs Naruto again, just because she can, and asks, "Um, is your mom around? I need to ask her a question."

"Yeah, she's in the kitchen, making dinner. What do you want to talk to her about?"

"Oh, nothing important," Sakura lies, "just girl stuff."

She finds Kushina spooning sticky, white rice into three bowls. She smiles when she sees Sakura and makes a fourth. "What brings you around today?"

"Well I was going to gloat about becoming a student of one of the Sannin, but Naruto told me he and Sasuke got the same offer. So I guess that kind of diminishes my bragging rights," Sakura says loudly. Then she approaches Kushina and whispers, "I've got information. Sasuke told me yesterday that his father is planning to give the police new responsibilities. I'm not sure what all it entails, but it sounds like the Hokage's going to be cracking down on us."

Kushina puts a hand on her shoulder. "Thank you, Sakura. I hadn't heard this from any of our other sources yet."

Sakura nods. She feels sick, the way she always does when she chooses the rebellion over Sasuke's trust.

"There's a meeting three nights from now," Kushina says softly. "This time we're gathering at the Thirteenth Training Ground at eleven o'clock."

"I'll be there," Sakura says.

After dinner with Kushina and Naruto (Minato is on a long mission to Water Country), she goes to the Uchiha compound. Sasuke's mother answers the door, and Sakura is pleased to see that Mikoto appears well and happy for the first time in a while. "Sakura," she says, "come on in. Are you looking for Sasuke?"

"Yeah." She ignores the guilt twisting in her stomach, reminding her that an hour ago she was selling her friend's secrets.

"He's in the backyard, training," Mikoto says, and she rolls her eyes. "That boy doesn't know the meaning of the word 'rest.'"

She tries to sneak up on Sasuke and surprise him, but she's still ten feet away when he says, "I know you're there, Sakura."

"How did you know it was me?" she asks, pouting.

"Only you or Naruto would try that, and the idiot would have been louder," Sasuke says. He throws a trio of shuriken with an almost lazy flick of his wrist. Each one lands at the center of its target, despite the waning winter sunlight. One, two, three, a little line of razor-edged stars, right in the bull's eyes.

"I hate you a little bit," Sakura says, half jealous and half impressed. "You can do that without even activating your Sharingan."

Sasuke looks at her, dark eyes curious. "Why are you here?"

"What, I can't make a social call?" Sakura asks.

"You could," Sasuke says evenly, "but you never do."

_Was that an invitation to visit more? _

"Ok, fine, I heard from Naruto that you're going to be Orochimaru's student, and I wanted to say congratulations." She toes the dirt with her boot and says, "And I wanted to tell you that, starting tomorrow, I'm Tsunade's apprentice."

That surprises him, she can tell, even though Sasuke's features remain almost perfectly neutral. "Good for you," he says. "Wanna train?"

"Not really. Let's do something fun for once." She takes him by the hand and leads him around the house to the front yard.

"Where are we going?" Sasuke asks.

Mikoto is on the porch, so Sakura calls out to her, "I'm making your son take a break. Is that all right?"

"Feel free," Mikoto says, and she waves them away.

* * *

Sakura takes him to the Festival of Lights.

The parade processes right through the middle of the village. Floats go by, decorated with lambent paper lanterns and tapestries and gilded wood carvings, accompanied by civilians playing music. Flutes fill the air with a high-pitched melody, while the drummers' beat seems to reverberate through the ground.

There are stands selling all manner of festival foods. Yakitori, dango, takoyaki, candied strawberries, and more. Sakura buys a bag of pink cotton candy almost the exact color of her hair. It's on the tip of his tongue to make a joke about it, but he doesn't. She plucks a piece of spun sugar every minute or so and pops it into her mouth, and Sasuke has to make himself look away from the soft fullness of her lips.

It's a bitterly cold winter night. The grass beneath their feet is coated in frost, and he can see his foggy breath every time he exhales. They're both bundled up in coats and scarves, as warm as they're like to get in this weather, but Sasuke is still freezing. When they pass a stall selling amazake, he stops to buy two cups of the hot rice wine.

"Beat it, kid," the vendor says. "You're what, fourteen?"

"It doesn't matter what age I am. I'm Uchiha Sasuke," he says, and the man is quick to apologize and supply two steaming cups on the house.

"I've never had anything alcoholic before," Sakura confesses. "Have you?"

Sasuke shakes his head. "No, but I'd drink just about anything right now so long as it was hot."

She laughs, takes a sip of her amazake, and says, "It's kind of sweet."

The fireworks start at eight o'clock. He and Sakura find seats on a grassy knoll to watch the colors bursting across the night sky. Red and gold and green, bright amongst the canvas of star-speckled blue.

"It's beautiful, don't you think?" Sakura asks.

"Sure," Sasuke says. He steals a piece of her cotton candy; it tastes like fleeting pink sugar, quick to dissolve on his tongue.

"Thief," Sakura says dryly, but she holds out her cotton candy so that he can take another bite.

The amazake burns a path of fire down his throat and into his belly, but it's worth the warmth it brings to the rest of his body. Sasuke likes it enough that he gets a second cup, and by the time that one is empty he feels a little unsteady and too hot under all his layers. He unwraps the blue scarf from his throat and drapes it around Sakura's slender neck. His hand lingers longer than it should, thumb just brushing her pulse point, fingers tangled in her hair.

_You're beautiful_, he thinks, and it's only when Sakura's green eyes widen that he realizes he has spoken aloud.

"Um, thanks," she says, blushing.

He drank too much rice wine_._ It's made him loose-lipped, and he can't afford that. Not around Sakura. Even when Sasuke is fully sober, she has a way of stripping away his discipline, of making him want to abandon honor and filial loyalty, to indulge in sweeter things. He might love her a little, this girl that some part of him secretly wants for his someday-wife, but this is not a thought Sasuke can afford to entertain.

But with the amazake giving him counterfeit courage, he entertains it anyway. Imagines what it might be like to kiss Sakura, to come home to her every day and sleep beside her every night. It would be a good life, husband to the strongest kunoichi in Konoha (because he's certain that's who Sakura is going to grow up to be).

She takes his hand and threads their fingers together. It's the first time she's done this in public, and maybe Sasuke should be worried, but they're surrounded by a sea of civilians. He feels anonymous, nameless, no longer the Hokage's son. Just a boy with a girl, watching fireworks paint the darkness with strokes of brilliant color.

* * *

_Sasuke said I'm beautiful. _

Sakura turns over the compliment in her mind, allows herself to bask in the warmth that it brings her every time she thinks about it. He _likes _her, she's almost certain.

Not that it matters, because Sasuke is promised to Masami and he would never disobey his father.

_I need to stop thinking of him that way. It can't lead to anything good. _

She spends a lazy Saturday studying a book on poisons and venoms that Tsunade gave her. Dry language aside, it's a fascinating read, and Sakura is a third of the way through the tome before sunset. She stops only for basic necessities and to write in her medical journal, taking note of difficult to procure antidotes and the symptoms of various kinds of poisoning.

She finally puts the book away as eleven o'clock approaches. Then Sakura dresses in dark, nondescript clothes, performs a simple henge to turn her pink hair brown, and sneaks out of her window. If she ran through Konoha's quiet streets she could make it to her destination in no time, but she wants to appear as inconspicuous as possible, and so she walks.

The Thirteenth Training Ground isn't as large as the Forty-Fourth, but it still takes Sakura a good fifteen minutes to locate her comrades at the heart of the forest. She's immediately struck by the size of the gathering, twice as large as any meeting she's seen yet. For Kushina to risk summoning so many people at once, something very important must be happening,

_Or something very dangerous._

But it isn't the number of rebels that's the greatest surprise. No, the thing that shocks her most is seeing her teacher's head of grey hair amongst the crowd.

She runs up to him and asks, "Kakashi-sensei?"

He turns around, and she's rarely seen so much expression on his masked face. "_Sakura_? What are you doing here?"

"Helping," she says.

Kakashi shakes his head. "You're too young. I can't believe Minato allowed this."

"I've been useful," Sakura says, a little defensively.

Her sensei frowns, but Kushina calls for quiet before he can say anything further.

Naruto's mother says, "I've asked you to come here to plan our boldest move against the Uchiha's regime: a month from tonight we'll attack their compound and kill the Hokage."

The clearing erupts with the noise of dissent, and Sakura sees fear written boldly across faces foreign and familiar. "We're not strong enough yet!" one old shinobi shouts. Kazue says, "They outnumber us ten to one," and Ino's father asks, "How do you plan to counter the power of the Sharingan?" Even Kakashi—one of the bravest men she knows—looks skeptical.

"It's time," Kushina says, in a tone that brooks no argument. "The longer we wait, the longer the people of Fire suffer—"

A white-eyed Hyuuga woman interrupts her, saying, "Someone's coming! Anbu, a lot of them, headed right this way!"

Sakura doesn't hear Kushina's instructions, because Kakashi takes her by the arm and says, calmly but firmly, "Run, Sakura."

She starts to argue, says, "I want to fight—"

But her sensei won't hear it. He pulls her from the clearing, rushes her away from the insurgent meeting, his hand gripping her forearm so hard that it hurts. A masked Anbu officer comes across them, but before Sakura can do anything, Kakashi stabs him in the throat with a kunai. Blood squirts around the blade, splatters the front of her shirt, warm and black under the new moon darkness. Sakura doesn't have time to listen to the man's desperate, gurgling attempts at drawing breath, death rattles she thinks she might never forget the hideous sound of, because Kakashi is running again, pulling her onward.

Once they're out of the training grounds, he takes her down a narrow, winding road she's never seen before. They stop before an apartment building, and Kakashi takes her upstairs to the third floor, opens the door to number 310, and says, "This is my place. You're going to stay here tonight."

"Okay," Sakura says. She feels too dazed with fright and worry to ask questions.

Inside, she finds a sight so unexpected that it breaks through her numbness: Rin, in a short nightdress, and Obito, wearing nothing but pajama pants, curled up on the living room couch together. When they see her and Kakashi, bloodied and breathing hard, they jump to their feet and hurry over. "What happened?" Rin asks. "Are you hurt?"

"We're fine," Kakashi says. "It's not our blood." If he was surprised to find his two teammates so intimately entwined, her sensei isn't showing it. "The meeting was attacked by Anbu. I need to get back there and help fight them off."

"We're going with you," Rin says. "Let me get my clothes and gear—"

"No," Kakashi says. "Someone needs to stay here with Sakura, and you're the best suited for that job."

Rin bites her lip, tears welling in her brown eyes, and says, "You can't just leave me behind while you and Obito go fight."

Kakashi swears, cups her cheek with his gloved hand, and whispers, "Please."

She pulls his mask down, and Sakura gets the briefest look at her sensei's handsome face before Rin kisses him.

When they part, Obito hugs her, and the embrace is just as loving as the one Rin shared with Kakashi a moment before. She kisses him as well, a quick brush of lips, and says, "Both you idiots better come back to me."

"We always do," Obito says.

After the men leave, Rin gives Sakura a fresh change of her own clothes and tells her where the bathroom is. She strips out of her bloody things, steps into the steam-filled shower, and washes herself under the spray of too-warm water. Sakura scrubs until her skin is pink and tender and she feels lightheaded from the heat. While she shampoos her hair, she thinks about this night: the barely formulated plan to assassinate Sasuke's father, the Hokage's officers attacking, Kakashi killing that man, and now this strange glimpse into her sensei's personal life.

Sakura remembers the blood spurting out of the Anbu officer's throat, wet and still hot on her chest. She wonders how many people are going to die tonight, if Kakashi or Ino's father or Naruto's mother will be one of them. Will the revolution itself die tonight too? She stands there until the water runs cold, then gets out of the shower and puts on overlarge borrowed clothes.

She finds Rin at the kitchen table, drinking tea. Her eyes are red and puffy, but she isn't crying anymore. "Here," she says, "have a cup."

Sakura accepts the mug of warm tea and says, "Thank you."

They sit in silence, drinking, with nothing to keep them company but their worries.

It's one of the longest nights of Sakura's young life, waiting to see if Kakashi and Obito come back.

* * *

An Anbu officer jerks Naruto awake in the twilight hour between night and day. "Get up," he says. "The Hokage has orders for you."

"Huh?" he asks, confused and still half-asleep. Naruto looks around and sees five more masked shinobi in his room, and his grogginess disappears in a heartbeat.

"I told you to move," the Anbu officer snaps.

Naruto stands, changes into his usual orange and blue clothes, and asks, "What does the Hokage need with me?"

"You'll see soon enough."

Konoha is just beginning to stir, and as the Anbu escort him across the village, Naruto sees a handful of people out and about, beginning their day early. They head toward the western outskirts of the Leaf, to a densely forested area far away from the urban bustle. The shinobi lead him to a shrine, down steep steps into darkness. It's an ancient place, Naruto can tell, maybe older than Konoha itself. At the base of the stairs, an officer opens a door, and he walks into an underground room lit with the soft, ruddy glow of torchlight. Ten Anbu stand guard, and there are a half-dozen other, unmasked shinobi there as well.

And that's when he sees her. His mother lies, unconscious and wounded, on a stone altar in the middle of the room, her long hair spilling around her, bright as blood.

"Okaasan!" Naruto shouts, but before he can run to her, he feels a sharp little pain at the nape of his neck. Almost like a wasp sting, except that this is followed by a strange lethargy. Quite suddenly, he feels slow and impossibly tired, barely able to keep his eyes open. Naruto attempts to fight, but the Anbu carry him to an empty altar, identical to the one his mother rests on, and hold him down.

Whatever they drugged him with is strong, and no matter how he tries he can't break free. "Okaasan," Naruto whimpers, and when he turns to look at her, he sees that a web of fractured black lines has spread across his mother's body, bleeding from the seal on her stomach to her limbs and face. No one needs to restrain her, because the lines themselves stretch from her body to the stone columns, tying her to the table.

"Let her go." Naruto wants to shout, but the words come out slurred and whispered.

A mantle of red chakra covers his mother, roiling and bubbling, something like water, and there is a sound to it that permeates the whole shrine, chilling Naruto to his bones. He can feel a horrible energy emanating from Okaasan's body, and now he can see the outline of three _tails_. Five of the unmasked shinobi make hand seals at the same time, and the mark on his mother's belly turns wholly black, spills like ink from a broken bottle. That ominous chakra runs forth from her stomach, and it heads toward Naruto. For a moment he sees it—the foxlike face of a demon—before the red engulfs him, drowns him.

And then Naruto can feel it coursing through his body, the presence behind the scarlet chakra, something ancient and evil now tied to his bones, bound in his blood. Chained against its will inside of him.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** This was a Naruto light chapter, but he'll be featured much more heavily in Chapter Seven as he deals with the repercussions of his mother's death and adjusts to becoming a jinchuriki. I wonder if anyone saw the Obito/Rin/Kakashi polyamory coming, or if it totally came out of left field? Thank you to everyone who has been leaving such thoughtful reviews, and I also appreciate every favorite and follow. You guys are the best. :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

_Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things._

* * *

Kakashi-sensei and Obito return as dawn breaks. Sakura hangs back while Rin hugs and kisses the men she loves, as they cling to one another in a three-sided embrace. Perhaps she should think Rin selfish or find her relationship with Kakashi and Obito unnatural, but she can only feel thankful that the men made it back home. (Besides, she has no room to judge anyone for who they love when she's falling for a boy that has been promised to another for years.)

Kakashi breaks away from Obito and Rin and walks toward Sakura. He's a mess of sweat and blood, and he smells like death incarnate. But she's so relieved to see her sensei alive and uninjured that she has to keep herself from throwing her arms around him anyway.

"Are you all right?" Kakashi asks.

"I'm fine, but what happened? Did anyone get captured?"

He frowns and says, "They ganged up on Kushina, poisoned her, and took her away."

_No_. Naruto's kind mother is almost certain to face execution for leading a seditionist meeting, and it takes every bit of Sakura's strength to hold in her tears.

"What if they saw you?" Rin asks. "They could be coming for you and Obito."

Kakashi shakes his head. "We took masks from two dead Anbu and wore them the entire time we fought, so we should be safe."

Sakura fidgets with the hem of her borrowed shirt. "Who else?"

Obito says, "Inoichi and Shikaku were injured, Chouza killed. There were others, people I didn't know: two Hyuuga boys, hurt badly, and that schoolmate of yours, the red-haired one, was cut down."

"Kazue?" Sakura asks. She hadn't known the girl well, but she was only fifteen. Young to die, even for a shinobi.

"I need to go home," Sakura says. "My mother will be up soon, and if I'm not there, she'll worry."

"Wait another hour," Rin says, "so the village bustle will hide you on your way back."

Sakura nods, even though she's certain waiting will mean Okaasan will find her empty bed; but better to be caught by her mother than an Anbu officer.

Kakashi and Obito take turns showering and changing clothes while Rin cooks breakfast.

"Usually this is your sensei's job," Rin says. "He cooks better than me and Obito put together."

"Really?" Sakura asks. "I have a hard time picturing Kakashi in an apron."

"He pulls it off surprisingly well," Rin says.

If there's something a little forced in their humor, she forgives them both for it. After the sleepless night they shared, it's hard for Sakura to find much funny.

The four of them sit around the square table, eating fried eggs on rice and miso soup. The food is delicious (Rin is a much better cook than she let on), but all Sakura can think about are her classmates. Shikamaru, Ino, and Chouji, who don't yet know that they've lost their fathers. And Naruto. Sweet, loud-mouthed Naruto who will soon be motherless, if he isn't already.

"What are we going to do?" she asks, picking at her egg until the yolk runs, yellow and slick, into her white rice.

"I don't know," Obito says. "Without Kushina…"

"Most of our people got away," Kakashi says. "And Minato will know what to do. He's the strongest ninja in this village. As long as we have him, the rebellion stands a chance."

* * *

"Jinchuriki." Naruto tastes the word, turns it over on his tongue, and finds nothing but bitterness.

He's at home, utterly alone. The Hokage himself came to visit, and if he hadn't had a half-dozen Anbu guarding him, Naruto would have tried to kill the bastard. Fugaku-sama explained that his mother was a leader of the resistance, that she had been caught conducting a rebel meeting last night, and this is why she was captured. Why the Kyubi was extracted from her and housed within Naruto instead.

"The Nine-Tails' jinchuriki must be loyal to Konoha, and to me," the Hokage had said. "You will be loyal, won't you, Naruto?"

His response had been colorful—the kind of language Okaasan always scolded him for using—and Fugaku-sama left Naruto with the promise that he could be as easily replaced as his mother if he proved treacherous.

It's hard to care much about his own safety when he knows Okaasan is dead. Even her strong body was too frail to survive for long once the Kyubi was withdrawn from it, and now Naruto holds within himself the same demon she carried for years.

_I never knew_. His mother was a jinchuriki and a revolutionary, and he'd had no idea. He wonders how much Otousan knows, whether both of his parents have been lying to him for years.

Naruto listens to the echoing quiet of his empty house, and every moment of silence serves as a reminder of what he's lost. When he closes his eyes, he sees Okaasan as she was in her last moments, unconscious and bloodied, fractured black lines spreading across her skin like an ink spiderweb, cloaked in that horrible chakra.

Now he feels it inside of himself, a great well of power, impossibly ominous. It's like there's something just underneath his skin, a coppery taste on the back of his tongue, that does not belong.

_She got what she deserved_, thinks some inner voice, and Naruto knows it's not his own. He would never think that about Okaasan. He loved her, and she loved him.

_Then why did she lie_? This time he isn't sure whether that's the Kyubi's thought or his own.

Naruto puts his hands over his ears, as if that will block out the demon's influence. But the voice is coming from _inside_, not outside, and it does nothing to help.

He's angry, because his mother is gone, murdered, and suddenly Naruto can't stand the quiet a second longer. He screams, turns over the coffee table, throws a bookend across the room, punches out the glass panes of a cabinet. His fist stings, and he feels blood running down his fingers. He falls to his knees, breath coming quick and staggered, and it's only then that he realizes he's sobbing.

After he's worn himself out, Naruto sits in the middle of his half-destroyed living room, cheeks wet with tears, and plucks a piece of glass out from between his knuckles. It hurts, but the pain is dull and distant, like it belongs to someone else. He goes to the bathroom, searches out bandages, and wraps up his hand. Red stains the gauze, bright as Okaasan's hair.

Naruto goes to his room and sits on the edge of the unmade bed. Was it really only a few hours ago that the Anbu dragged him out of the house? That he was pulled from dreamless sleep into a nightmare?

He doesn't want to be here, alone with the Kyubi and memories of his mother, so he leaves. Wanders across the village to Sakura's apartment. He knocks with his left hand, to spare his bandaged knuckles the impact, and Mebuki answers the door. She frowns, the lines beside her mouth deepening, and asks, "Are you all right, Naruto?"

There's no way to answer that honestly without saying more than he wants to, so he ignores her question. "Is Sakura home?"

"Yes," Mebuki says. "Come on in."

The Haruno apartment is small, threadbare, and cheap, but Naruto has been here too many times for the shabbiness of the place to surprise him. He finds Sakura in her spartan bedroom, reading a book that must be half a foot thick. "What's the encyclopedia for?" he asks.

She looks up, sets the book aside, stands, and hugs him. Sakura is warm and soft and she smells faintly of vanilla, and Naruto has never loved her as much as he does in this moment. She rubs slow circles on his back, comfort given through touch, and he feels the overwhelming urge to kiss her. But this day has been so strange and horrible that he doesn't want to taint something like that with its tragedy. Besides, he's almost certain that Sakura isn't interested in kisses—not from him.

"What happened?" she asks. "You look awful."

"My mother is dead." Saying this out loud only makes it more real, and now he's crying again. He hugs Sakura tighter, buries his face in her pink hair, and grips the back of her shirt with shaking hands. "She's dead and I don't know what to do."

She makes soothing noises and says, "You're gonna be okay, Naruto. I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but you will be."

They stay like this for some time, until he pulls away and says, voice thick with tears, "Um, I kinda punched a cabinet. Can you heal me?"

"Sure," she says, and the beauty of her gentle expression makes Naruto feel just a little bit better.

Sakura tells him to sit on her bed, and she unwraps the bandages from around his right hand with a medic's thoughtful precision. Carefully, she summons chakra to her fingertips and begins to stitch up his knuckles with ninjutsu. "Must have been a mean cabinet," she says lightly.

"Yeah," Naruto says, and a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. Only Sakura-chan could get him to smile on a day like this.

Once she's done, Sakura goes to the bathroom and comes back with a wet cloth. She swabs his hand with it, washing away the sticky blood. "Try not to get into another fist fight with an inanimate object, okay? Medic's orders."

"You got it," Naruto says. Then, he can't help but ask, "Sakura, what's it been like, growing up without one of your parents?"

She looks down, away from him, and says, "Not so bad, really, but I never knew my father. It's different for you. You had a wonderful mother, Naruto-kun, and she loved you so much."

He nods. "I know she did, just…"

Sakura tilts her head to the side. "Just what?"

"I found out she lied to me. About a lot of things," he says, running a hand through his hair, frustrated. "Important things. I don't know how to—how to match that up with the Okaasan I knew. And I'm not sure if it matters now, because she's gone."

"Maybe she was just trying to protect you," Sakura says, and she places a calming hand on his shoulder. Through the layers of his jacket and shirt, he can still feel the warmth of her touch.

"I guess. She was involved in some bad things," Naruto says, even though he doesn't know enough about the resistance shifting beneath Konoha's placid surface to judge whether it's good or not. "She was a rebel. That's what the Hokage said, anyway. Can you even imagine that? My mother, leading a bunch of insurgents?"

Sakura remains quiet for a long moment. Then she says, "I need to tell you something, Naruto, because you deserve to hear the truth."

"Okay," he says, as wary as he is worried.

"I—I knew about your mother," she says, "because I'm a rebel too."

"What?" Of all the things he thought Sakura might say, he never would have guessed this. "But why?"

She looks at him with pleading green eyes and says, "You know why. Our village isn't what it should be, and if we don't fight the Uchiha Clan, it's going to stay this way forever."

Naruto thinks of the execution of Masanobu Ryu. How all the faces on the Hokage monument are Uchihas, except for the First. The way his mother's hair spilled over the edge of that stone table, red and bright, and how it felt to have the Kyubi forced inside of him.

"But what you're doing," he says, "it could start a war."

"I know." Sakura takes his newly healed hand, grasps it between her own. "But I'd rather fight for what's right than watch corrupt shinobi destroy everything that's good about this country. That's how your mother felt too—and that's what she died for."

* * *

"I want you to keep an eye on the Namikaze boy," Otousan says. "After what happened last night, he can't be trusted."

"Then why did you entrust him with the Kyubi?" Sasuke asks.

"Because Kushina's son is the only person in this village with chakra strong enough to suppress the Nine-Tails. If we're lucky, once his anger wears away, he'll learn from his mother's mistakes. We can't afford another rogue jinchuriki."

Sasuke doesn't say it, but he thinks his father made a permanent enemy of Naruto the moment he sentenced Kushina to death.

_He probably hates me too._

"Watch him closely," Otousan says. "If he does anything suspicious, you report it to me immediately. You understand?"

"Yes, sir," he says, even though he isn't sure he can do that. Naruto may be obnoxious and outspoken, but he's also Sasuke's friend—his best friend.

At Team 7's next training (the day before Kushina's funeral), Naruto doesn't speak one word to him, and when Kakashi tells them to pair up and practice their taijutsu, he refuses.

Kakashi sighs and takes Naruto aside. Still, Sasuke can hear their conversation.

"I told you that you didn't have to show up today," their sensei says.

"I don't need special treatment."

Sasuke throws shuriken at targets (one bull's eye, two, three) and tries not to listen, but it's difficult.

"It's not about special treatment," Kakashi says. "And if you won't work with your teammates, then what's the point? Go home and get some rest."

"I'll train with Sakura-chan," Naruto says.

"Fine. Let her give you a chakra control lesson."

At the end of their session, Sasuke approaches Naruto and says, "Hey."

His friend doesn't answer, doesn't even look at him.

"I'm sorry about your mother," he says, because he is. Sasuke understands why his father had Kushina killed, but that doesn't mean he thinks it's _right_.

Naruto turns, and he looks angrier than Sasuke has ever seen him. There's an unnatural thinness to his pupils, a strange sharpness to his teeth, when he says, "Your father's a murderer!"

That stings (maybe because it's true). "Otousan did what he had to do," Sasuke says, as calmly as he can.

"So you're defending him?"

Before he can answer, Naruto punches him in the mouth. It's in Sasuke's nature to hit back, but he manages to keep his temper in check.

_His mother just died._

He tastes blood and feels it dribbling down his chin from a busted lip.

"Enough of that," Kakashi says, and he grabs Naruto by the back of his orange jacket.

Once he calms down, their sensei releases him, and Naruto says, "I'm going home."

Sakura, who's been quiet for this whole exchange, walks up to Sasuke and puts her fingers on his split lip. He feels the familiar soothing sensation of her chakra, repairing broken skin. She heals him, but he can tell from the way Sakura won't meet his eyes that she's disappointed in him.

* * *

That night, she sneaks into the Uchiha Compound, then into Sasuke's third-floor room. Sakura sits on his bed and patiently waits for his family to finish dinner. When he finally walks in, Sasuke looks surprised to see her.

"What are you doing here?" he asks.

"I want to talk to you," she says, "about what happened to Naruto's mother."

Sasuke frowns. "What's there to say? She was a rebel."

"So she deserved to die?" Sakura asks. "Is that what you're saying?"

"Don't put words in my mouth," Sasuke snaps. He starts to pace. "I liked Kushina, and I'm sorry she's dead. She was a kind woman, so I'm sure she had her reasons for what she did. But just the same, our village can't afford to have a traitorous jinchuriki. That could spell disaster for everyone."

She shakes her head. "And what about Naruto? Don't you think he deserves better than to be forced to carry that monster?"

That's harder for him to explain away, Sakura expects. Naruto was innocent of his mother's crimes, but he was still punished.

Sasuke sighs, stops pacing, and puts his hands in his pockets. "Naruto is the only one who could handle the Nine-Tails—something about his chakra makes him special, I don't know what exactly. But my father didn't have any choice, Sakura."

"There's always a choice," she says.

Sasuke smirks. "You sound like my brother. Itachi was always saying things like that."

"You should apologize to Naruto," Sakura says.

"_What_?" Sasuke asks. "He hit me, in case you didn't notice."

"He lost his mother, and all you had to say is that your father did what was necessary?" Sakura asks, and now she can't keep her temper out of her voice. "What kind of friend says that?"

"How else was I supposed to react?" he asks. "Naruto called my father a murderer."

Sakura bites her tongue to keep from telling Sasuke exactly what she thinks of Uchiha Fugaku, but it must show on her face anyway, because he says, "So what, you agree with him?"

"What does it matter what I think?" Sakura asks.

"It matters," Sasuke whispers. "It matters to me."

She can't meet his eyes when she says, "I think that what happened to Kushina and Naruto is wrong, and if you can't see why, then I don't know what to tell you."

Sasuke sits next to her, close enough that their shoulders are touching, and she can feel the heat of him. He's always so warm, like the fire his clan is so famous for burns just under his skin.

"I don't want you to be angry with me," he says quietly. "It's not my fault, what my father did, and if it had been up to me… well, things would have turned out differently."

"I know that, Sasuke. You're a good person." She takes his hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. "I just don't want our team to fall apart, and after what happened today, I'm not sure how we're going to get through this."

"I don't know either," Sasuke says.

* * *

Since Otousan is still away on his mission, Kakashi helped Naruto plan the funeral. He's glad he had his sensei's assistance, because he doesn't think he could have organized it on his own. It's a small affair, only Naruto, Kakashi, Sakura, and a handful of his mother's peers. Okaasan was a popular woman, but most people are too afraid to honor her when they hear that she was executed for treason. Laying her to rest without his father present feels wrong, but there was only so long they could wait.

Naruto doesn't rage and he doesn't cry. He's shed enough tears in the last few days to last him a lifetime, and his anger has turned inward, caught somewhere in his heart, tangled up with his grief. He no longer wants to destroy furniture or punch his teammate—even though Sasuke deserved what he got. Now his fury is concentrated, focused, and he knows exactly where he wants to direct it.

His father returns a week later, and Naruto knows as soon as he walks in the house that someone already told him about Okaasan. He isn't crying anymore, but Naruto can tell from the puffiness of his eyes and redness of his cheeks that he only recently collected himself.

He rushes to his father and lets Otousan wrap him in a strong embrace. His father smells like winter wind and the dust of the road, and Naruto grips the back of his vest maybe a little too hard.

"I wish I had been here," Otousan says.

"I do too." Maybe he could have saved Okaasan and she'd still be alive today. Instead, ashes are all that remains of his fierce, beautiful mother.

"We can't bring her back," Otousan whispers, "but we can avenge her."

Naruto nods against his father's chest.

Otousan releases him and says, "The Hokage told me that you were made into the new Nine-Tails jinchuriki."

"Yeah," Naruto says. His hand strays to his stomach, where the black seal marks him as the keeper of the Kyubi.

"I'm sorry, Naruto. It's a heavy burden to bear. One your mother—" Otousan's voice breaks, but then he takes a steadying breath and continues. "She struggled with it for as long as I knew her."

"If she could do it, I can too," Naruto says.

They talk well into the night. Otousan answers all of his questions about the rebellion, and Naruto tells his father he wants to help. He expects some resistance, but Otousan just nods.

Two days later, the thirteen rebels who were captured by the Anbu are put to death. Naruto doesn't see it, but he knows Shikamaru's and Ino's fathers were among the shinobi executed.

Now that he's a chunin, Naruto starts to lead missions. Some with Team 7 alone, some with new squads made up of various Konoha genin. Whenever he's in the village, he trains with his father or Jiraiya. He sees less of Sasuke and Sakura now that they're all apprenticed to the Sannin, and things are different in the wake of Okaasan's death. Ever since his discovery that Sakura is a rebel—that she's been passing information on Sasuke and his family for months—he sees that Team 7 was never as united as he imagined. Like fault lines beneath the veneer of their friendship, their squad has always been fractured. He just couldn't see it until now.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Thank you to everyone who's been reviewing, favoriting, and following my work. It's so encouraging when people respond enthusiastically to my stories. And for those who are curious, the quote at the beginning of this chapter is by Arthur Schopenhauer.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

_We accept the love we think we deserve._

* * *

Winter turns to spring, spring to summer. Sakura and Sasuke retake the chunin exams, which are held in the Mist, and they both get promoted. On their last night in Kiri they sneak downstairs to the inn's common room. It's dark and deserted at this hour, and they sit on the floor by the hearth, enjoying the warmth of the flickering firelight.

Sasuke looks impossibly handsome, even with his features cast half in shadow. Now that it's past midnight, today is his fourteenth birthday, but Sakura has nothing to give him. She tells him this, apologetic and embarrassed, but he cuts her off, saying, "Don't worry about it. I have everything I want—well, almost everything."

There's an honesty in the way he looks at her, with such sudden hunger, that tells Sakura he's thinking of _her_. She's the one thing Sasuke wants that he doesn't have, and she'd need to be a fool not to notice.

In the months since the Festival of Lights, the night he called her beautiful, there have been dozens of small incidents like this. When Sasuke's touch or gaze was overly familiar, or lingered for seconds too long. Always in private, he makes sure these things happen away from prying eyes and judgment, so that they're safe from repercussions. They've put forth the effort to make more time alone together, so that they can savor these stolen moments, like tonight.

Sakura knows she shouldn't, but she leans against Sasuke and kisses his cheek. It's a darting show of affection, over almost as quickly as it began, and just perfunctory enough for her to pretend it's purely platonic.

Except Sasuke doesn't seem interested in pretending. He runs his fingers through her hair, almost a caress, and the sensation sends a shiver through her. He's a boy who is used to getting whatever he desires, whether it's a cup of amazake or a girl, and she understands well enough that Sasuke might want her simply because she's a challenge, because she's forbidden. But it's hard to care about his reasons when he's looking at her like this.

He closes the space between them, until there's only a breath separating their lips, but then he just presses his forehead to hers and whispers, "_Sakura_."

The way he says her name, full of so much need, makes her heart beat harder beneath her breast. Sasuke cradles the back of her head and kisses her cheek, almost the same way she kissed him moments ago. Except this touch is slower and warmer and so close to the corner of her mouth that she feels herself blush.

Sakura can't help it; she presses her lips to his, swallows the warmth of his gasp. Sasuke is utterly still for a long moment, but then he pulls her into his arms and kisses her back. It's closed-mouthed and soft, as chaste as a kiss can be, really, but it's the sweetest thing Sakura has ever known. She winds her arms around his back, lets herself melt against him, so that her small breasts are pressed against his chest, and kisses him more fiercely.

They stay this way for what could be minutes or hours, until Sasuke finally breaks away from her and says, breathless, "We should stop."

"Why?" Sakura asks, too drunk on the taste of him to think clearly.

"You know why," he says.

Of course she does. Sasuke belongs to someone else, and slumming it with her won't change that.

They return to their respective beds, but Sakura doesn't sleep for even a minute. Her mind is too full of Sasuke for rest.

The next day, on the boat that takes the Konoha shinobi back to the Fire Country, Sakura is so tired that she spends most of her time asleep in the cabin she shares with Masami. Her friend wakes her for dinner and says, "You must have been up late last night."

"Yeah, I couldn't sleep," Sakura says, and she looks anywhere besides at Masami.

* * *

Sasuke avoids Sakura for weeks. Now that they are chunin alongside Naruto, Team 7 has all but officially disbanded. Kakashi no longer calls them together for mandatory training sessions, so he only has to see his teammates when he chooses to. He keeps himself busy training with Orochimaru and sparring with Naruto. (Things haven't been right between them since Kushina died, but his best friend is more eager to fight him now than ever before.) He skips his team's lunches at Ichiraku, which he used to attend religiously, and after he gets a minor injury on his first solo mission, he goes to Rin instead of the hospital, because he's afraid he'll see Sakura there. Tsunade has her taking shifts alongside medics twice her age, he's heard, and he doesn't want to risk running into her.

But there's only so long he can stand to go without talking to her, without touching her. And so, on a hot and humid day in the middle of August, Sasuke breaks down and goes to Sakura's apartment. Mebuki is gone on a mission, but his teammate is home, and she lets him inside without a word.

They go to her room, and it's as plain and neat as always. There's nowhere to sit except on the bed, so they take seats beside one another on Sakura's too-firm mattress, a foot of space between them.

"I'm sorry," Sakura says. She blurts the apology suddenly, without context, and he has no idea what she's sorry for.

Sasuke says as much, and Sakura bites her bottom lip. An innocent enough habit, but it draws his attention to her mouth, and makes him think about how much he wishes he had really tasted her that night in Kiri.

"I'm sorry I kissed you," she says. "I assume that's why you've been dodging me since the exams."

It isn't really that he regrets sharing those kisses with her in the Mist Village, so much as Sasuke is afraid he won't have the discipline to keep from repeating the experience. To indulge his desires once is excusable, but to keep Sakura on the side while he courts Masami is unfair to both of them, and he doesn't want to be the sort of boy who takes advantage of and lies to girls.

"You don't have anything to be sorry for," Sasuke says, "but it would be smarter if we didn't…"

Sakura nods, looking down at her clasped hands, and says, "If that's what you want."

It isn't what he _wants_, but just the same, it's the way things have to be.

* * *

Naruto carries the Nine-Tails with him wherever he goes, like a parasite. A heaviness in his bones, a hatefulness that lurks in the back of his mind. Jiraiya and Otousan try to help him, but he feels alone, isolated, hopeless—and he misses his mother.

Oddly, the person he finds he can talk to about these things most easily is Neji. If anyone understands the burden of being branded against your will, of having a destiny you never wanted thrust upon you, it's Neji. He doesn't judge Naruto for being a jinchuriki, and he doesn't fear him either.

Today, after training, he sits beside Neji, breathing hard, and drinks half of his bottled water in one go. It's lukewarm from sitting in the summer sun for two hours, but Naruto is too thirsty to care.

"How's Hinata?" he asks.

Naruto hasn't seen her in weeks, since their last mission together, and he worries about her sometimes. Not because she's weak—in many ways, Hinata is stronger than anyone he knows—but simply because she matters to him.

Neji says, "She's well. No thanks to me."

There was a time when Naruto hated this boy for hurting Hinata, but now he better understands why he took out his rage against his clan on the Hyuuga heiress. "Has she forgiven you?" he asks.

Neji smiles, but it doesn't look like he's happy. "Of course she did. Hinata couldn't hold a grudge if her life depended on it."

"Then you should forgive yourself," Naruto says.

"How can I do that?" Neji asks. "I was supposed to protect her. And instead…"

_Instead you almost killed her._

That doesn't need to be said, however, so Naruto keeps his mouth shut.

Neji looks at him and asks, "Are you getting used to the Kyubi?"

Naruto shrugs. "Not really. I don't know if I ever will."

"You might be surprised," Neji says. "It's easier than you might think to grow accustomed to a cage."

That isn't a thought Naruto particularly wants to entertain. "Can you do me a favor?" he asks. "Can you not tell Hinata about what I am?"

"If that's your wish," Neji says, "but just so you know, I doubt she'd care."

Maybe this is true, but for some reason he can't quite puzzle out, Naruto doesn't think he could stand it if Hinata feared him.

"Thanks for keeping this quiet," he says.

Neji nods. "Of course."

On the walk home, Naruto thinks about the Kyubi. He hates the Nine-Tails, and the beast doesn't like him any better in return. He feels like a walking prison, and now his dreams are haunted by images of Okaasan on that stone table. How red chakra cloaked her until she looked like she could be drowning in it and those fractured black lines crossed her body. His mother died because of this creature, and Naruto can't forgive the Kyubi for that.

* * *

Konoha's rebellion was hit hard by the Anbu attack. So many people killed or captured, and others are afraid to come back. Minato says they're back to square one, but he isn't defeated, and as long as there's hope Sakura will keep fighting.

She insists on being given more work than spying on Sasuke, and now that the revolution is so short on men, Minato can't refuse. He tasks her with passing messages to ninja across the Fire Country and foreign shinobi while she's away on solo missions.

So after she finishes stealing kinjutsu scrolls from a Wind shrine, she stops at a noisy River Country inn to meet a contact. Minato didn't tell Sakura who this ally is, but she knows as soon as she sees Uchiha Itachi sitting at a corner table—relaxed, high collar shielding the lower half of his face, holding a stick of half-eaten dango—that this is the person she's seeking.

It's been many years since she last saw Sasuke's older brother, and he's doing an excellent job of deflecting attention, as any smart missing-nin would. Still, it's impossible not to notice him, because Itachi was a good-looking boy who has grown into a very handsome man.

Sakura takes the seat across from him, steals his cup of sake, and drinks it.

"Aren't you a little young for that?" Itachi asks.

"I'm fourteen," Sakura says. "Old enough to risk my life for Konoha. Old enough to hurt other people. But if I want a drink of sake, I suddenly get treated like a child. Well, I'm not a child. Not anymore."

"You're a fierce girl. I can see why Minato let you join so young." Itachi smirks, takes a bite of dango, chews thoughtfully, then says, "Of course, it probably doesn't hurt that you're two-faced enough to report on my brother."

Sakura feels herself blush, but her voice remains steady when she says, "I don't like doing that. Sasuke is my friend, and—"

"No need to defend yourself, not to me. You just picked up where I left off." Itachi shrugs, as if this admission is a small thing. The least of his sins. "I spied on my family for years before I left the village, so I'm not judging you."

Maybe this is supposed to make her feel better, but it doesn't.

"I have a message from Minato." Sakura hands over the letter. Just blank pages to the naked eye, but the right jutsu will reveal its secrets.

Itachi nods, pockets the missive, and says, "Tell him that we have friends in Suna. The Kazekage hates the Hokage, and Raza told me himself that he'd be willing to field shinobi in a fight against my father."

"Why?" Sakura asks. "Why would he risk his own people in a foreign civil war?"

"Because the Uchiha greed knows no bounds," Itachi says, "and he's afraid that my clan will make the Wind Country its next conquest if left unchecked."

She frowns. "Do you think he's right to fear that?"

"I think my father is the sort of man who is always unsatisfied. Nothing is ever enough." Itachi twirls the empty dango stick between graceful fingers. "So yes, I believe the Kazekage is smart to anticipate war with Konoha."

"I hope you're wrong," Sakura says.

Itachi smiles, but the expression is too subdued to look anything but sad. "I hope I'm wrong too."

She stands, straightens her skirt, and says, "Goodbye, Itachi."

But before she can turn away from him, he's caught her wrist, his grip firm but not ungentle. "Wait, Sakura. I want you to promise me something."

"What?" she asks.

"Look out for Sasuke. Help him. My brother lets his love for our clan blind him, but he's smart and good-hearted. He may be misguided, but I think that Sasuke will see the truth in time. Just be patient with him."

Sakura wants to say no, but there's something in the way Itachi is looking at her that makes his request impossible to refuse. So instead, she nods. "I'll do my best."

She leaves the inn, goes back out into the rainy night, and heads home.

If her mind wasn't so full of Sasuke and Itachi, Sakura might have noticed the two Suna nin tailing her. But her attention is focused on a promise she's sure she can't keep, and so she hurries into the forest, distracted and alone, with enemies following behind her.

* * *

Sasuke wakes him in the middle of the night. Naruto is angry at first, because he doesn't want to see his teammate, doesn't want to talk to him either, but then he notices his bloodless, rigid expression, and he knows something is wrong.

"What happened?" Naruto asks.

"It's Sakura," Sasuke says. "She's—she's in the hospital."

Naruto hurries to get up, changes out of his pajamas, and pulls on a t-shirt and shorts. "Is she hurt bad?"

"No, her injuries are pretty minor. Nothing she couldn't have easily healed herself, if she'd had any more chakra left." Sasuke runs a hand through his hair, and the gesture is so different from what Naruto has come to expect from his cool, collected friend that it worries him even more.

"Then what's wrong with her?" he asks.

Sasuke takes a deep breath. "Sakura was attacked by Suna shinobi on her way back from Wind Country. She incapacitated one, but the other… she had to kill him to get away."

On the run the hospital, Naruto says, "I'm kinda shocked that you bothered to get me."

Sasuke glares at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Naruto glares right back. "You and Sakura, you've got your own little world where I don't belong. And yeah, I've noticed how you two look at each other."

"I don't look at her—"

"Yes you do," Naruto says.

"Whatever. I woke you because Sakura needs our team right now. Our whole team. So we need to set aside our problems for a minute so we can help her." Sasuke gives him a sideways look. "Think you can do that?"

Naruto says, "For Sakura, yeah, I can do that."

They find her on the third floor of the hospital in a private room. Mebuki, Kakashi, and Tsunade are already there. Naruto is surprised to see her still dressed in her blood-stained travel gear. He looks to Sasuke, and the question must be written plainly across his face, because his teammate whispers, "She won't let anybody clean her up. We've all tried already."

Sakura is sitting on the bed with her knees pulled up to her chest, barefoot but otherwise fully clothed, still as a statue. Tear tracks have cut a clean path down her cheeks, leaving two lines of bare skin in the midst of the mud and blood all over her face. She stares ahead, pale eyes glassy, pink hair dirty and disheveled, ignoring everyone.

"Can we have a minute alone?" Naruto asks. Mebuki frowns, but Tsunade and Kakashi lead her out of the room. Sasuke follows, and then it's just him and Sakura and the blood of some Suna ninja.

Naruto sits on the edge of her bed. "What are you thinking, Sakura-chan?"

She doesn't answer, doesn't even glance his way.

"Sakura?" he asks, gentler now.

They sit in silence for five minutes, ten, but Naruto is patient, and he waits for her to speak. When he puts his hand on hers, Sakura finally looks at him. "I killed a boy," she says. "He was only fifteen or sixteen, so I can't even call him a man. And I killed him. Kunai to the throat. I must have hit the carotid artery, because he bled out in seconds. At least it was fast."

"You had to protect yourself," Naruto says. "You didn't do anything wrong, Sakura."

She shakes her head. "Yes, I did. That boy didn't have to die. I could have knocked him out, but instead I murdered him. I did it without even thinking. Because that's what I'm trained to do. To kill without question."

"I'm sorry," Naruto whispers, and he squeezes her hand. "I wish there was something I could say that would make you feel better."

Maybe, before his mother died, he could have thought up something reassuring to tell his friend, but now he knows exactly what loss like that means. The boy Sakura killed was someone's child, maybe someone's brother, and there's nothing he can say or do that will make her forget this.

Naruto says, "You're strong, Sakura-chan. You'll get through this."

"You think so?" she asks, and he's never heard her sound so tired.

"I know so." He smiles. "Now how about you let someone clean you up?"

She nods and asks, "Will you send Sasuke back in?"

He kisses her cheek, sticky with dried mud, and says, "Sure."

* * *

From time to time, Sasuke has thought about seeing Sakura in her underwear, but he never expected it to happen like this. With her sitting on a hospital bed, covered in dirt and and a dead ninja's blood, dressed only in her bra and panties, shaking like a leaf in the wind. He washes her arms, legs, and stomach, even her chest, and yet there's nothing sexual about it. No, nothing sexual, but it's maybe the most intimate moment of his young life, seeing his friend (his Sakura) this raw. Bare, hurt, and vulnerable.

If he's honest with himself, Sasuke knows he's jealous. He spent over an hour trying to convince Sakura to open up before he resorted to dragging their teammate out of bed. And it took Naruto less than fifteen minutes to get her talking.

Sasuke wipes at the mud and blood encrusted on Sakura's face, washing away all the filth until she's clean and the damp towel in his hand is smeared with a rusty red.

"There," he says. "How do you feel?"

"Cold."

A fresh hospital gown sits on the counter by the sink, so he picks it up and gives it to her. Sakura clutches the garment to her chest, still trembling.

"Will you kiss me?" she whispers.

Sasuke knows that they decided not to do this again, that Masami deserves better than an unfaithful fiance, but with the way Sakura is looking at him, so needy and desperate for solace, he can't say no.

It's different from their first kiss. He tries to go slow, to kiss her softly, but she won't have it. Sakura grips his shirt in clenched fists, bites his lip, opens her mouth to him so that he can truly taste her this time. (He finds the flavors of rain and girl and blood on her tongue.) And Sasuke can't help it, he kisses back, every bit as hungrily as she kisses him.

Until she sobs against his mouth, and he realizes that Sakura has started crying.

Then Sasuke cups her cheeks, wipes away her tears with his thumbs. "It's okay. You're going to be okay, Sakura."

She pulls back, sniffs, and says, "I think I might love you, Sasuke."

"I think…" He steels himself to tell the truth. "I think I might love you too."

"What are we gonna do?" Sakura asks.

"I don't know," Sasuke says. "I don't know."

He leaves the hospital as dawn breaks over Konoha, the bright colors of morning spilling across roofs and sidewalks and streets. Sasuke wanders around the village, going in no particular

direction, just letting his feet carry him while he worries over Sakura. The girl who, in his sweetest dream, becomes his wife. Except his wife has already been selected for him.

_This choice isn't mine to make_.

He has a responsibility to his clan to keep their bloodline pure, an obligation to honor his father's agreement with Masami's family. His own selfish wants don't factor into the equation, no matter how much he cares for Sakura.

As if he needs a reminder of this (and clearly he does), Otousan invites Masami and her parents over for dinner that night. After dessert, the adults retire to the sitting room to discuss village politics, so Sasuke and Masami go to his room. They sit on the bed, not talking much, but it's a comfortable quiet. Things are always comfortable with Masami, and he supposes he should be thankful for that. His intended is smart, pretty, and kind, and they like one another. Perhaps if he can learn to let Sakura go he could even come to love Masami.

"Can I kiss you?" she asks.

It seems wrong to do this when he was confessing his love for Sakura just hours ago, but Sasuke knows it's better for everyone if he forgets about his teammate and tries to care for his future wife.

Their kiss is chaste and sweet, not unlike his first with Sakura, but it couldn't be more different in all the ways that matter. Even though it's pleasant enough—Masami's lips are soft, and she's pliant in his arms—Sasuke barely feels it.

* * *

Things are different between Sasuke and Masami. They touch one another now. Sakura sees him brush a stray eyelash from the apple of her cheek, hold her hand, wrap a strong arm around her shoulders. Masami smiles more—smiles all the time—and she looks at Sasuke like he hung the moon. And what a beautiful pair they make, same dark eyes and blue-black hair and pale good looks, like matching bookends.

When Masami confides that Sasuke is a very skilled kisser, it takes every bit of Sakura's self-control not to tell her that she knows first-hand just how good he is. Instead, she smiles and pretends to be happy for her friend. And when she goes to the training grounds she destroys a dummy, sits down, and allows herself to cry, just once, over the boy she loves that will never be hers.

She hates Sasuke a bit, for saying he loves her too, for giving her hope and then turning to Masami. It hurts a little less, informing on him to Minato, when she's angry with him.

Sakura doesn't see much of Sasuke these days, though. She leads missions out of the village as often as any chunin, and Tsunade keeps her busy through the fall and winter, training and clocking in endless hours at the hospital.

By the time Sakura turns fifteen, she has killed two more shinobi. One Kiri missing-nin and a kunoichi from Iwa. Neither of them haunts her the way the Suna boy does. She dreams of him sometimes, his scared face as he chokes on a river of blood. Something she never told anyone is that she tried to heal that ninja from the Sand, to save his life, but by the time she sealed his wound he was already dead.

She isn't so foolish with her other enemies. When she kills the Iwa shinobi, Sakura leaves the corpse behind and doesn't look back.

She hears from Masami that Mikoto is starting to plan the wedding, which will take place the summer Sasuke turns seventeen. If she had any more tears to shed, Sakura might have cried over this news. Instead, she takes an A-rank infiltration mission to Snow and spends the next two months under cover, as far from the Leaf and Uchiha Sasuke as she can get.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I continue to be absolutely blown away by the number of people who are showing their support for this story. Thank you so much to everyone who favorites and follows, and especially to those who leave reviews. I value every comment, and each review encourages me to keep writing this fic. I hope my update brightens somebody's weekend! Now, time to get back to work on Chapter Nine… :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

_My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them._

* * *

She is on the eighteenth hour of her shift at the hospital when Akiko, another chunin medic, finds her and says, "You better come quick, Sakura. It's Naruto and Team 8 and they're banged up pretty bad."

Tsunade is already working on Hinata when she reaches the trauma wing, and Sakura can tell right away that her classmate is barely alive. She looks around for Naruto and sees him unconscious, being worked on by a senior medic-nin.

"Is he—?"

"He's fine," Tsunade says. "Get over here and help. Hinata is bleeding internally and she has a compound fracture. You deal with the arm while I get this bleeding under control."

"Yes, shishou." She pushes the bone back into its proper place and starts knitting the skin together with her chakra. While she works, Sakura steals glances at Tsunade, who's sweating and cursing with every other breath.

_Please live_, she thinks. _Please live, Hinata._

Sakura isn't particularly close to the Hyuuga girl, but it's impossible not to admire her after the fight she put up against her cousin at their first chunin exams. Besides, she's important to Naruto, and he's lost far too much already.

She fixes the broken bone before Tsunade finishes dealing with Hinata's internal bleeding, but her shishou won't tolerate her hovering and sends her to heal Kiba's burns.

"What happened out there?" Sakura asks.

"I don't even know," Kiba says. "We were ambushed—definitely by shinobi, but none of them were wearing a hitai-ate—and Hinata got hurt so bad. I tried to get to her, to help, but we were so outnumbered, I had three of the bastards on me and couldn't reach her. And when Naruto saw, he…"

Sakura keeps her flow of chakra steady, a healing balm that slowly renews the skin of Kiba's burned back. "He what?" she asks.

"I don't know how to describe it. He _changed_. Turned into some monster. I've never seen anything like it."

_Oh, no. The Kyubi._

Kiba shivers under hands, whether from the cool of her soothing chakra or the memory he's recounting, she can't be sure. "He killed the four he was fighting like they were nothing, Sakura. After that, the others went running, but—but Naruto chased them down."

"I don't need to hear the rest," she says, because she can guess what happened next easily enough.

"How's Hinata?" Kiba asks, and his voice breaks on his teammate's name. "She's gonna live, right?"

"She has the best medic-nin in the world working on her," Sakura says, and she hopes that's reassurance enough.

"But is she gonna be okay?" Kiba asks.

_Never promise that someone will live_, Tsunade-shishou once told her. _Nobody has the power to promise life. _

* * *

He opens his eyes and sees sunshine and Sakura, sitting in the chair beside his bed. It takes a moment for Naruto to place where he is, and why, but when he remembers—_Hinata_, hurt, maybe dying—he moves to get up.

"No you don't," Sakura says, and she plants herself in front of him, hands on hips. "You need to rest—"

"What I need is to see Hinata. Where is she? Is she all right?"

Sakura grips his shoulders, maybe as a comforting gesture, but more likely to keep him from standing. "Hinata's going to be fine. I helped Tsunade-shishou heal her, and I promise you, she's okay."

The relief is so palpable that Naruto feels it throughout every inch of his body. A calming relaxation of tensed muscles, the release of a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "I still want to see her," he says.

Sakura shakes her head. "No way. Your body has gone through an awful ordeal today. The last thing you should do is be up and running around—Hey!"

Naruto stands, ignoring her lecture, and finds himself so close to Sakura that he can smell blood and hospital soap and the vanilla shampoo she uses on her hair. Her eyes are wide with concern, short hair pulled into a sloppy pink ponytail that's losing the fight against gravity. She has never, he thinks, looked more beautiful than she does right now.

But that doesn't stop him from saying, "I'm going, whether you like it or not," and he pushes past her.

It doesn't take long for Naruto to find Hinata's room. She's propped up by a small mountain of pillows, lustrous dark hair framing her too-pale face, awake but weak. Still, she's alive, alert, and whole, and all the words Naruto thought he might speak get caught somewhere in his throat. He'd worried that his loss of control might have injured her further, perhaps hurt her even more than the enemy shinobi. Seeing her sitting up, a little wan but mostly fine, brings stinging tears to his eyes. Naruto doesn't know when this girl became so important to him, but somewhere along the way she has.

He takes the seat closest to her and asks, "How do you feel?"

"A little sore," she says, "but the medics say I'll be fine." Hinata looks at him, and there's a wariness in her pale eyes that he's never quite seen directed his way before. "What happened to you?" she asks, and there's some trembling, fragile emotion in her voice. It takes a moment for Naruto to place it, but when he does, he goes cold all over. He feels distant from himself, as if this body isn't his own; and in a way, it's not.

"You're afraid of me," Naruto says, and this hurts more than he could have ever anticipated.

"No, I'm not!" Hinata sits forward and coughs a little. "I'm afraid _for _you."

He frowns and asks, "What do you mean?"

"It did scare me, the—what you turned into, but only because I didn't know what was happening to you, or if you'd be all right."

He's not supposed to talk about it, Naruto knows, but she's already seen the destruction he can wreak, so what does it matter if he shares the truth with Hinata? He tells her about the Nine-Tails, what it is and what _he _is now, a vessel for a creature so despicable that no one has the courage to remember its name. Without really meaning to, he says, "It scares me sometimes, that he's a part of me. That I'm carrying around a hateful thing like that. And… I miss Okaasan."

Hinata reaches over, takes his hand, fair skin against tanned, and Naruto suddenly realizes that he has never, not even once, seen Hyuuga Hiashi's wife. "What happened to your mother?"

She says, softly but calmly, "Okaasan was very kind. Her name was Himawari and she smelled like rosemary. She killed herself when I was eight."

Naruto probably shouldn't, but he asks, "Why?"

Hinata looks down. "I don't really know. But I think it was because she was from the Branch House, and she couldn't stand to see one of her daughters branded like her. Maybe that's why Otousan hasn't given Hanabi the seal yet." She shrugs and says, "That, or he's trying to figure out how to break tradition and make her the heir over me."

He frowns, because it's bad enough to see Neji caged, but the thought of Hinata with that foul mark on her forehead is intolerable. "Someday, when I'm Hokage, there won't be a Main House or a Branch House anymore. There'll just be the Hyuuga," he says.

Naruto wishes he could offer more. That he could promise change now, for her and Hanabi and Neji, but he can't.

Even so, Hinata squeezes his hand and says, "I believe you, Naruto-kun."

* * *

Sasuke has barely spoken to his teammates in months. They're all busy studying under the Sannin and leading their own missions. He and Naruto spar regularly, but Sakura dropped out of these informal trainings last year. Around the time he started courting Masami properly, he can't help but notice.

_She hates me_, he thinks. _Sakura hates me. _

With good reason. He confessed his love for her only to spurn her in favor of his bride-to-be. Sasuke thinks he did the right thing, that carrying on with Sakura would only hurt both of them (and Masami too, should she ever find out). It's better this way.

This is what he tells himself, but that doesn't stop him from wanting her. Sasuke had hoped that if he disciplined himself, if he kept his affections in check, that eventually his love for Sakura would fade. But it's been a year since they kissed in that hospital room, and he cares for her just as much now as he did last summer. If anything, the months apart have only deepened his desire to see her, touch her, taste her.

Sasuke knows now that no amount of time away from Sakura will erase his feelings for her. That, no matter how hard he tries, he isn't going to come to love Masami the way a husband should love his wife.

Regardless, his wedding looms just over the horizon. Two years might as well be two weeks for how quickly the time seems to be passing. Sometimes Sasuke imagines calling it off, telling his father that he won't marry Masami, and making Sakura his wife instead (if she'll still have him)—but these are the sort of thoughts a dutiful son should not entertain, and he pushes them away.

Nothing he does soothes the ache of Sakura's absence. If they can't be together, he can abide that—he hates it, but he can abide it. It's the prospect of losing her friendship, losing his place in her life entirely, that he truly can't tolerate.

So on a sunny morning in September he looks for Sakura. She's isn't at home or Naruto's house or the hospital, but he has a feeling that she may be at one of Team 7's old haunts. After checking the roof of the bakery and their favorite weapons shop, he finally finds her in the meadow where he, Sakura, and Naruto used to spend so many afternoons.

She's lying on her back on a blue blanket with her eyes closed, but she asks, without even looking at him, "What are you doing here, Sasuke?"

He sits beside her. "We need to talk."

Sakura turns on her side, facing away from him. "I don't want to talk to you."

"I know you're angry with me," he says, "and I understand why."

"If you understood you'd just leave me in peace," she says.

Sasuke puts a hand on her shoulder and says, "Please, Sakura."

She's still and silent for a long moment, but then Sakura sits up and looks at him, green eyes fierce and challenging.

"I'm sorry," he says. Apologies have never come easily to Sasuke, but he owes her this much at least.

"For what?" she asks. Sakura plucks at the grass, carelessly uprooting blades and dropping them back to the ground.

"For hurting you," Sasuke says.

Sakura bites her bottom lip, then asks, "Do you love Masami now?"

He shakes his head. "No. I can't. I've tried, but I can't."

"That's not what it looks like," she whispers. "You seem so happy together."

Sasuke wants to tell her she's the only one he wants, because it's true and because he's been holding it in for so long. But he knows this would only complicate matters and confuse Sakura more, so he keeps it to himself.

After this, things with Sakura go back to something like normal. She stops skipping Team 7 lunch dates and training sessions, and she agrees to meet him alone, sometimes on a rooftop or the training grounds. Most often, though, they just sit together in the meadow, drinking hot tea from the same thermos, talking and laughing, as if nothing ever came between them.

* * *

It's been almost two months since he lost himself to the Kyubi, and Naruto can't stop thinking about the men he murdered. He killed those unmarked shinobi. Hunted them down like a wolf with its prey and ripped them apart.

Naruto feels like he could scratch his skin off, if only he could get to the ugly thing inside of himself and dig it out.

He doesn't have time to wallow in self-disgust, though, because Otousan and Jiraiya are keeping him busy, both with rebellion work and training. Now that Sakura has rejoined his and Sasuke's get-togethers, he's spending more time with Team 7 too. He misses the simplicity of their days as genin, but there's no going back, so Naruto looks forward.

The resistance had cooled and almost fallen apart in the last year, but his father refused to give up, and those efforts are finally starting to pay off. Those who were frightened by the raid that got Okaasan killed have largely been replaced by new faces, and the reports from foreign fronts are good. The Kazekage and Mizukage have both agreed to field soldiers against the Uchiha Clan if it comes to war.

_When it comes to war_, Naruto thinks. It's only a matter of time, really, before the village he loves is thrown into chaos.

On his birthday, he meets Hinata at Ichiraku. They've barely spoken since that morning at the hospital, but he thinks about their conversation all the time. He wonders what it feels like to lose your mother in such a way. Okaasan's death was hard enough, but at least he knows she would have fought for her life if she could have. If it hadn't been stolen from her.

"Hi," Hinata says softly.

There's something soothing about her gentle presence, and Naruto finds himself smiling widely. "Hey. Saved you a seat." He pats the stool beside his own.

Hinata sits next to him and says, "Thank you."

They both order tonkotsu, and Naruto is surprised to see Hinata eat every bit as much as he does.

"You sure can put it away for somebody so small," he says, impressed.

She blushes, a pretty pink flush that colors her cheeks and throat. "Um, thanks?"

"It was a compliment," Naruto says, grinning.

They go back to eating their ramen, and in the quiet between them, he can't help but consider his precarious place in this village and what Hinata would think if she knew all of his secrets. She's a good person, maybe the very best person he knows, but Hinata is still a daughter of the Hyuuga Clan. If she was aware of what he and Sakura were doing, passing messages and informing on a friend, all on behalf of the rebellion, would she approve of it or hate them for it?

* * *

They're in the meadow again, this time huddled under a thick blanket of Sasuke's, bodies pressed close enough to share heat. Winter came to Konoha with a suddenness that sharpened the wind and frosted the grass. It's cold today, and she buries her face in Sasuke's sweatered shoulder, seeking his ever-present warmth.

He surprises her by cradling the back of her head, then threading his fingers through her hair. Emboldened, Sakura nuzzles closer, breathes in his scent, and without much considering the repercussions, presses a light kiss to his neck. She feels his pulse thrumming beneath her lips. Sasuke's whole body tenses and his grip on her hair tightens, pulls a little bit, but she doesn't mind this small hurt. She knows she shouldn't, but Sakura kisses his throat again, and once more. He's so quiet and stiff that she's afraid she's gone too far, so she starts to pull away—but then Sasuke says, "Don't stop." He sounds as confident and commanding as ever, if breathless. Sakura wonders how he can be so certain when she's a mess of guilt and confusion, of desire and love for this boy who isn't hers to want. Except that right now, as she kisses his jaw, his cheek, Sasuke turns so their mouths meet, and she thinks that in this moment, at least, they belong to each other.

It starts out soft, chaste, their lips barely brushing, and Sakura is too dizzy with nervousness and want to press for more. Sasuke seems to have no such reservations. He maneuvers them both to the ground so that she's on her back beneath him and kisses her harder. Sakura wraps her arms around him, grasps his broadening shoulders, opens her legs so that he can settle between them. She likes the weight of him, the pressure of his lips on her own, and she instinctively opens her mouth to him. Sasuke stills for the briefest measure, holding himself above her. Then he kisses her again, tastes her, and Sakura feels a rush of warmth despite the cold. They stay this way for a long time, Sasuke's body caging hers, trading kisses that grow hungrier and more desperate.

Part of her is afraid they'll get caught, and as much as she'd like to, Sakura can't forget that Sasuke is intended for Masami. She's ashamed of herself for using him like this even as she's using him to feed information to the rebellion. Loving him with the same mouth that voices his secrets. She should stop this, but it feels so good to witness him as he unravels, the perfectly guarded Uchiha Sasuke losing control. Abandoning discipline for pleasure and honor for need, forsaking promises to his clan because of simple, selfish lust.

So instead of doing the right thing, Sakura slides her hands beneath his sweater, touches the taut flatness of his stomach and traces the faintest ridge of scar tissue, a souvenir from his fight with the Uzushio ninja. She remembers how close she came to losing him that day, how frightened she was before she even understood what this boy would someday mean to her.

Sasuke kisses the hollow of her throat and plays with the zipper on her shirt. "Can I?" he asks, and he sounds so ardent and honest in his desire that Sakura nods. She wants him to look at her, to touch her.

This confidence dwindles as Sasuke undresses her, exposing her from the waist up. She didn't wear a bra today, so as soon as he opens her shirt, those keen, dark eyes of his can see everything. Sakura fights the urge to cover her small breasts and tries not to wonder if Sasuke has gone this far with Masami, if he's comparing her to the lovely girl who will someday be his wife.

Then Sasuke sits up on his knees and cups her breasts, rubs her nipples with his thumbs until they peak. Sakura can't help it, she arches her back and says his name. He's awakening feelings in her that she's only ever explored in the privacy of her bed, when she touched herself and pretended it was him. Now his hands are on her body, and Sakura discovers that her self-restraint and modesty are disposable things, easily sacrificed.

"Touch me," she whimpers. "Please, Sasuke-kun."

He smirks, that arrogant half-smile she knows so well, and says, "I am touching you." He squeezes her breasts a little to emphasize his point.

"Not there," she says. Sakura takes a shaky breath, puts her hand on his, and guides it lower, down her stomach. To get what she wants she's going to have to be brave enough to tell him, to show him. She pulls up her skirt, hesitates to gather her courage, and tugs down her tight shorts. She puts his hand between her legs and whispers, "Here."

Sakura knows she's blushing furiously, more embarrassed than she has ever been in her life, but she doesn't have long to consider these feelings, because Sasuke yanks her shorts down her legs, impatient and rough, and tosses them aside. Then he does the same to her plain, cotton underwear, and Sakura snaps her legs shut.

Sasuke kisses her, and her body weakens, relaxes. He spreads her legs, gently, and sits back again to get a good look at her. She wishes he would say something, anything, but he doesn't, so Sakura asks, "Do you… do you like what you see?"

She has never felt more vulnerable, opening herself up to the judgement of a boy who is brutally honest. She half-expects Sasuke to respond sarcastically, to mock her attempt to draw a compliment from him. Instead, he says, almost dismissively, "Of course, Sakura. You're beautiful," as if this is a fact.

He touches her sex, at first a little too forcefully to be pleasurable. He doesn't know what he's doing, no more than Sakura does, but when she tells him to slow down, to be gentler, he listens. Sasuke always has been a quick study, and within a few minutes he's found the rhythm that undoes her. She lifts her hips, trying to get closer, to diminish this aching desire to be filled, but there's nothing for it. Sakura knows what her body wants, and she's just curious and frantic enough in her need to say, "You can have me, you know."

Sasuke stills, stops touching her, and draws away. He's breathing heavily, and there's such heat behind the look he gives her that she almost thinks he's angry. "What are we doing?" he asks, as if it's only just hitting him, the impropriety and irresponsibility of all this. "We should stop." He turns his head, maybe because the sight of her nakedness is too much a temptation. Sakura sits up, cups his cheek, makes him face her, and his gaze roams from her mouth to her bare breasts.

She should listen to him. The cool, logical part of Sakura knows that it would be better, safer, if she put on her clothes and returned home and pretended this never happened. She won't, though, because she loves Sasuke and she has wanted him for too long to let this opportunity slip through her fingers. It won't take much to convince him.

She straddles him, and Sasuke says her name, tone cautionary, but it's a half-hearted warning at best.

"I know you want me," Sakura says. She presses herself against his lap, against the hardness there. "I can feel that much."

"You know that this is—is complicated." But he's gripping her hips now, burying his face in the crook of her neck. Still, he says, "I don't want to hurt Masami."

Sakura freezes, her need quelled by the mention of her friend. Shame wars with want, and she's on the verge of relenting when Sasuke says, "Fuck, Sakura," voice broken. He pushes her to the blanketed earth, unbuttons his pants and pulls them down. He takes his cock in hand, and a moment later she feels him against her sex. She's as wet and ready as she's ever like to be, but when he pushes inside her, it hurts. A sharp, stinging pain that makes her cry out, that dispels the pleasure Sasuke brought her earlier. She closes her eyes and clings to him, lets him thrust into her as he likes. Lets the boy she loves rut on top of her, hoping that he finishes quickly, and tries not to cry.

Sasuke stops, and the pain tapers to discomfort. "We're going to try something different."

He pulls away, sits up on his knees, changing the angle, and when he pushes back inside of her she finds that it hurts less like this. That when he moves a certain way it even almost feels _good_, and before she knows it, Sakura is pushing back against him, meeting his thrusts. It still hurts, but now it's more of a dull ache, and there's pleasure laced with the pain. Sasuke picks up the pace, but she keeps up with him, and it's not another minute before his fingers are bruising her hips, losing his careful rhythm entirely, and then he's coming inside of her.

When it's over, they lie side by side, fingers loosely entwined, both breathing heavily. Night fell sometime while they were making love. The sky has greyed to twilight, and the air is cool against her flushed skin. Sakura shivers, half from the cold and half from unfulfillment. Sasuke pulls her into his arms, and she burrows against him, searching for warmth.

_We should never have done this_. Sakura knows it in the same way she can predict precisely where her shuriken will land when she throws them: instinctively, certainly, without room for other possibilities.

She thinks of sweet Masami, innocently believing that her husband-to-be is waiting for her, just as she is waiting for him. And then there's Sasuke, the boy whose confidences she sells to his enemies. If he knew, he would never forgive her. Never want to speak to her, much less touch her, again.

But Sasuke knows nothing of the truth; he is ignorant about the secrets that make up the girl in his arms, and when he kisses her, Sakura can only kiss back.

This was a mistake, but she suspects it's the kind she'll be making over and over. A lapse of judgement she'll repeat until the consequences catch up with her.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** The mention of Hinata's mother smelling like rosemary, and the fact that she committed suicide, are references to _Rosemary for Remembrance_ by Sintari (which happens to be my very favorite Naruto fanfiction). I know the rebellion stuff has been kind of light in this chapter and the last, but it should pick up again pretty soon.

I am absolutely delighted and blown away by the fact that this story has reached over 400 reviews and over 500 favorites in less than ten chapters! Thank you to everyone who comments on, favorites, or follows this fic. I've gotten a little behind on responding to reviews, but I want you guys to know that I read and re-read every single comment, and that each one is much appreciated.

Also, the quote at the beginning of this chapter is by Jack Kerouac.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

_be of love (a little) more careful _

_than of everything_

* * *

It's been a week since she and Sasuke made love in the meadow, and Sakura doesn't know what to do. She worries she could be pregnant, despite the great unlikelihood of this (all kunoichi are given birth control shots every three months, unless they specifically request otherwise). She fears that her mother will somehow know, just by looking at her, that she gave up her virginity. And most of all, she's afraid that Masami will find out about her betrayal.

Sasuke won't even look at her. When Naruto calls them together for lunch at Ichiraku, he skips their meeting without explanation, and any time Sakura tries to talk to him, he brushes her off, saying he has to be somewhere.

Perhaps this should hurt more, but mostly she finds it frustrating. Sakura _knows _him. Sasuke isn't avoiding her because he regrets what they did together; he's avoiding her because he's afraid that if he doesn't keep away, it will happen again.

She carries on with her life. Sakura takes missions and trains and passes messages for the rebellion, trying to think of anything besides Uchiha Sasuke and the mistake they made. Her period comes and goes, and with it any fear of pregnancy.

Sasuke stops avoiding her as spring approaches, but he still doesn't talk about what happened between them in the meadow. She's too tired of this game of hot-and-cold to try to guide him toward a choice. Sakura can already guess how things will go, anyway: Sasuke will resist her until he breaks, and they'll end up trading touches in some illicit place. Then guilt will drive them apart—his guilt or hers, who knows?—and they'll end up dancing around one another all over again.

Team 7 celebrates their sixteenth birthdays in a quick succession of small parties: Sakura's in the spring, Sasuke's in the summer, Naruto's in the autumn. Sasuke even dances with her at the latter. And although they only share a brief, perfectly friendly embrace, she can feel his hands trembling on her waist, can see in his dark eyes that he's thinking of that day in the woods. The pleasure he found when she was tangled up beneath him, half naked and completely his.

She wonders if making love to her gave Sasuke a taste for more intimate things. His future bride would be only too happy to indulge him, she imagines.

Sakura excuses herself from the party and goes outside to get some fresh air. The garden behind Naruto's house has become a mess of weeds and untended flowers in the wake of Kushina's death. She takes a seat against the stone wall, pulls a pale purple blossom from its unruly bush, and plucks the petals from the stem with ruthless nonchalance.

"Why are you hiding out here?" Sasuke asks. He doesn't sit beside her on the ground—no, he's too weak, too much a slave to his desire for her, to test himself like that when they're alone. Instead, he stands before her, hands in his pockets.

When she's finished stripping the first unfortunate flower, she steals another from the bush and starts the process all over again. "You're one to talk about hiding," Sakura says.

"Ah." He says it like he understands her all of a sudden. "You want to fight."

She tosses the ruined blossom to the ground and looks up at him, head tilted to the side. "How many months has it been since you were inside me, Sasuke?"

He looks over his shoulder, because of course he wouldn't dare have this conversation where anyone might overhear. "This isn't the place," he whispers.

She stands up, closing the space between their bodies until what's left of it is charged with heat and the force of her anger. "Are you fucking Masami now?" she asks.

Sasuke scowls at her and says, "No."

Sakura shrugs, as if it doesn't matter to her one way or another. "Maybe you save that sort of thing for me, huh? She's probably too good to be used and thrown away like trash."

He pushes her against the wall and says, "Dammit, Sakura. Don't."

She's being mean, but she can't seem to stop baiting him. Her voice breaks when she says, "I bet you'll be gentler with Masami. Might even take the time to make her come. I guess I wasn't worth the effort." Sakura swallows her hurt and adds, voice steadier, "Or maybe you just didn't know what you were doing."

She knows she's hurt him—and his pride besides—and still she can't make herself sorry for it.

Sasuke looks at her with such anguish that she almost regrets her cruelty, but then he's kissing her, those sweet lips of his on hers for the first time in months, and how Sakura has missed the taste of him. Any of their peers could walk outside, could catch them like this, but Sasuke doesn't seem to care, and that only makes her want him more.

He slips a hand under her skirt, pulls her shorts and underwear down around her knees. Sakura rips her mouth away from his, gasping for breath, meaning to ask what he's doing, but she can't find the words. Sasuke kisses her neck, and when he thrusts two fingers inside of her, he whispers a taunt in her ear: "Maybe I don't know what to do, but I don't think I have to, Sakura. You want me so bad it won't take any work at all to make you come."

She wishes he was wrong, but everything Sasuke is saying and doing is making her shamefully wet. The slick sound of his fingers pumping in and out of her proves it. She looks up at the night sky, at the bright stars looking down on this display, the possession of her body by a boy who seems to determined to take everything from her. When he curls his fingers inside her she shudders and moans so violently that he has to cover her mouth with his free hand. Sakura whimpers, so _close _she can barely stand it—

The back door opens, and Naruto leans outside, saying, "Hey, when are you two gonna—" He stops dead, eyes wide, mouth gaping.

"Go away, Naruto!" Sasuke hisses over his shoulder.

The door closes as quickly as it opened.

Sakura expects him to pull away from her, but Sasuke only thrusts his fingers into her harder and faster, a punishing rhythm that pushes her over the edge in a matter of moments. She's overwhelmed by bliss, body taut and trembling, crying out into the hollow of his palm as the pleasure takes her.

When she comes down from it, Sasuke is quick to separate from her. Because she's too slow and sluggish in the process of dressing herself properly, he tugs her panties and shorts up around her hips again, straightens her skirt over her legs, and fusses with her mussed hair until he deems it presentable.

"Go back inside, quickly, before anybody else misses you," Sasuke orders. "I'll follow in a few minutes."

Sakura nods and returns to the party on shaky legs. She's terrified that someone will notice what a mess she is, but the chunin are all too busy drinking ill-gotten sake to much care about her.

Except for Naruto, of course, who strides over to her, takes her by the arm, and pulls her to the empty guest bedroom. Once the door is closed behind them he says, "What was that, Sakura-chan?"

Her body is still humming with the aftershocks of her climax, and her mind is muddled from pleasure. Still, she finds the wherewithal to say, "You can't tell anybody, Naruto. Please."

"Are you—are you and Sasuke together?" he asks, clearly confused. "I thought he and Masami—"

"He's marrying Masami," Sakura says, and it takes all of her self-control to keep her voice even. "What you saw… it's just a little fun for us, before then."

Naruto frowns, disapproval and disappointment coloring his beautiful blue eyes. "You deserve better than that, Sakura-chan. And so does Masami."

She tucks her hair behind her ear. For some reason she can't look at him. "I know. But I don't think the cheating is the worst of it. Do you?"

Naruto understands as well as she does that Minato set her the task of spying on Sasuke.

Her best friend sighs heavily. "I guess not," he agrees. "You're in some kind of mess, you know that, right?"

"Oh I do." Sakura laughs, even though she's never found anything less funny. "Trust me, Naruto. I know."

* * *

Naruto tries to forget what he saw in the garden behind his house. Sasuke with one hand under Sakura's skirt, the other clamped over her mouth, while she shivered with pleasure. He isn't sure what he hates most about this: that it was Sasuke who got to touch their teammate this way (instead of him), or that the memory of seeing Sakura with her shorts around her knees makes him uncomfortably flushed anyway.

_She doesn't want me_, he reminds himself. _Not like she wants Sasuke._

It would be best if he set aside his feelings for Sakura. He isn't the boy she chooses, so he needs to accept that and move on.

Besides, there are important things to focus on. As the autumn wanes, he trains with Jiraiya and Otousan more often and leads increasingly difficult missions on his own. The Hokage seems to be testing him, gauging his loyalty by sending him on the kinds of assignments most chunin would balk at. But if he expects his jinchuriki to protest, then Fugaku-sama has another thing coming.

On his next mission to the Water Country, Naruto takes a detour to the small town of Kyosha, where he meets a masked messenger of the Mizukage's. The nameless, faceless shinobi speaks with a sweet tone of voice that could be feminine, saying, "Terumi-sama remains unhappy with the terms proposed by your father. If Kiri risks open warfare with the Uchiha, she wants the promise of the new Konoha's protection down the line."

"You have it," Naruto whispers. They're in the back of a rundown teashop, ignoring the steaming cups they bought for appearances' sake. "What makes the Mizukage think we'd go back on our word?"

"Somehow Iwa knows that we're in talks with Konoha's resistance," says the masked kunoichi. "The Tsuchikage has been looking for a reason to invade Kiri for years, and you must know that he and Uchiha Fugaku are thick as thieves. We may find ourselves in our own war before we have a chance to support you in yours."

Naruto sees what she's getting at—that Kiri might need help from Konoha's rebellion before the Mist can assist the Leaf. Otousan hasn't given him express permission to negotiate terms; he's supposed to be an emissary only. But Naruto is practiced enough when it comes to matters of warfare to know what his father's answer would be. "There's no way we can field people to fight against Iwa. Not yet. Not until we've taken care of matters at home."

The Mizukage's messenger shrugs. "Then consider the Mist's aid withdrawn."

Naruto frowns. "You don't even know if Iwa means to make a move yet. If they don't, none of this matters anyway—"

"It matters if our allies are too weak to be worth our support. Terumi-sama does not bet on losing dogfights." The kunoichi stands, bows, and says, "I had great respect for your mother. I hope you prove to be a worthy successor to her, Namikaze Naruto."

"Uzumaki," he corrects. "I took her name after the Hokage had her executed."

Not a choice Otousan supported—it was too obvious a slap in Fugaku-sama's face—but his father understood his reasoning. Okaasan was one of the last of her clan, and now Naruto carries that legacy. So he wanted his mother's heritage reflected in his name.

Two days later, after he's returned home and delivered the news to his father that the Mizukage is retracting Kiri's support, he meets Team 7 at one of their genin haunts: the roof of the bakery. Sakura brings a blanket and a picnic basket full of bento that she made herself.

It's a little strange, doing something together like old times, with so much hurt and so many lies tangled up between them. Besides, whenever Sasuke and Sakura look at each other for a moment too long for propriety, Naruto can't help but think of what he saw on his birthday. He tries to push that memory away and eat his bento in peace.

After lunch, Sasuke says he's being considered for a promotion to jounin. Naruto doesn't doubt he'll get it; the examining board that determines these things is comprised entirely of Uchiha, and they're notorious for promoting the least skilled of their clan. Of course, even if the board was fair and balanced Sasuke would probably make jounin. He's the kind of boy who demands the attention and obedience of the people who work with him, his skills and raw power are undeniable, and he seems to have an innate understanding of military tactics that Naruto sometimes envies.

"Tsunade-shishou wants to recommend me too," Sakura admits shyly. "I probably won't be promoted though."

Kunoichi, medics, and shinobi without old clan names to back them up are all discriminated against when it comes to promotions, Naruto knows, so he understands her concerns. Still, he says, "No way, Sakura-chan! You're the best medic at the hospital, after Tsunade, not to mention you can crush enemy nin with your pinky finger. They'd be idiots not to promote you."

"He's right," Sasuke says. "If you want, I can put in a word with my cousin Saiyuri. She's on the examining board this year."

Sakura frowns and shakes her head. "I don't want special treatment."

Sasuke looks at her like she's dense (which Naruto thinks is pretty unfair, because it's no secret that Sakura is the smartest member of Team 7).

"It's not special treatment," Sasuke says. "You're at a disadvantage. I just want to help level the playing field."

Sakura sighs, but she stays patient. "I understand that, but this isn't something you'd do for anybody else, is it?"

"So?" he asks.

Naruto can't keep from snorting. "You really don't get what 'special treatment' means, do you, Sasuke?"

Sakura smirks. "I guess it's a side effect of growing up the Hokage's son," she teases.

Her tone is light-hearted, but Naruto can see right away that Sasuke has taken it badly. Maybe Sakura catches this too, because her pretty smile dims and she says, "I'll catch up with you guys later. I promised I'd help Okaasan clean tonight."

She kisses him on the cheek, hesitates before doing the same to Sasuke—although Naruto can't help but notice that her lips linger on Sasuke's skin a little longer than necessary.

Once she's gone, Naruto glances at his best friend and says, "So. You and Sakura, huh?"

Sasuke shakes his head. "There is no me and Sakura. You've got it wrong."

Naruto pulls a kunai from his tool pouch and plays with it. "That's not what it looked like at my party," he says lightly.

"Forget what you saw at your party," Sasuke says. "Besides, it isn't any of your business."

Naruto laughs. "Then maybe you shouldn't have been doing it in my backyard."

A faint blush colors Sasuke's cheeks. "I don't want to talk about this," he mutters. "There's nothing to talk about anyway. We're not together."

Naruto shrugs. "Sakura said something like that too. Wanna know what I think?"

"Not really, but I bet you're going to tell me anyway," Sasuke says dryly.

"I think the two of you are full of shit."

Naruto's smiles fades as he thinks about the things his friend doesn't know. Sakura has been working against Sasuke's family for years, spying on him for the rebellion, and he's ignorant of it.

"Maybe you should—I dunno—reconsider what you're doing," Naruto says, as gently as he can. "It's not fair to Sakura or Masami."

"You think I don't know that?" Sasuke asks, looking at him sharply. "Just stay out things that don't concern you, Naruto."

He smiles sadly and bites his tongue, afraid he'll say more than he should if he keeps talking.

Naruto wonders how much time they have left as a real team. Because when Sasuke finds out the truth, it will spell the ruin of their entire squad.

* * *

Sasuke sees Sakura when Team 7 gets together to spar or share meals, but he avoids spending time with her alone. Still, no amount of distance will help him forget what happened at the meadow, then again in the garden at Naruto's house. The taste of her mouth, the feel of her body under his hands. How sweet it felt to finally touch her the way he'd been imagining for so long.

_Stop_, he tells himself. _Stop thinking about that_. It would be best if he forgot about their indiscretions.

So when Masami kisses him, he kisses back. He takes her on dates to Konoha's nicest restaurants, and he allows her to hold his hand under the table. She is, he thinks, not for the first time, a kind and beautiful girl. Someday she'll make a fine wife, will be a good mother to his children.

But she is not Sakura.

Tonight, he and Masami go to Himura's. They order a three-course meal, but for all that Sasuke can taste it, the luxurious fare might as well be ashes in his mouth.

"What's wrong?" Masami asks, and she looks at him with such concern that he shifts in his seat, feeling guilty.

"Nothing," Sasuke lies.

She makes a skeptical noise. "You've barely eaten a bite."

"I'm tired," he says, twisting a napkin in his lap.

At the end of the night, Sasuke walks Masami back to her house and gives her a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. She seems disappointed, but he can't make himself kiss her properly. Not when his mind is full of Sakura.

When he gets home, Sasuke finds her in his room, sitting on his bed, one slender leg crossed over the other, as if he'd summoned her by thought alone. Sakura looks quite at home, barefoot and relaxed.

He locks the door and asks, "How did you get in here?"

"Through the window," she says simply, as if it's perfectly acceptable to break into his room without permission.

"Well you need to go," Sasuke says. "If my parents catch you in here—"

"They'll what?" Sakura asks, and now her expression is stubborn. "Think the worst? Assume we're fucking? Oh, wait, we are."

"We _did_," Sasuke corrects. "It can't happen again."

"We both know you don't mean that," she whispers.

Sasuke has tried to regret fucking her, to regret making her come, but the plain truth is that he can't. It felt too good, and he'd wanted it—wanted _her_—so badly.

So now, when Sakura stands and walks toward him, he knows he should tell her to go, tell her to leave him in peace. But he can't (won't). She approaches him slowly, intently, and when they're finally close enough to kiss, Sakura gets on her knees before him.

"What are you doing?" he asks, suddenly nervous.

Her nimble hands unbutton and unzip his pants. She looks up at him, never takes her eyes off of his as she pushes his boxers down. Sakura stops, waits for him to let her know whether he wants this, and Sasuke can't help it, he's half-hard already as he whispers, "Please." She takes hold of his cock, and just the feel of her hand almost finishes him. Then she leans forward, kisses the blunt tip, and the softness of her lips has him biting back a groan. His parents are downstairs, so he can't make too much noise, but when Sakura takes him in her mouth he gasps. Sasuke puts his hands in her hair, cradling her head as she sucks on him, and it takes all of his willpower not to just thrust, but he's sure she's never done this before and he doesn't want to hurt her. She grows more confident, takes him deeper, and it feels so good. He can't keep control much longer, not with her swallowing him like this, and he closes his eyes against the pleasure.

"I'm gonna—" he warns, expecting her to pull away, but Sakura only sucks on him faster, more fiercely, until he's coming and moaning quietly.

His legs nearly give out, but somehow Sasuke manages to keep standing. He looks down at Sakura, still on her knees, pink hair a mess from where he gripped it. Her lips are red, wet, and swollen, and just the sight of her inviting mouth makes him want to do it again.

She stands and smooths her love-rumpled hair, cheeks flushed. "I should—I should probably go."

"Yeah," Sasuke says.

Sakura sneaks out of his window, leaving the same way she came in. After she's gone, he changes into night clothes, turns off the light, gets in bed, and buries himself beneath the covers. Sasuke closes his eyes, but he can't stop thinking about Sakura, about what he let her do to him, and sleep doesn't come.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Two Naruto updates in one day! I'm on a roll.

So, a very smutty chapter with a dash of political intrigue to get this story back on track! Next up: wedding planning for Sasuke and Masami's upcoming nuptials and more resistance shenanigans.

Part One: Remission is almost over, folks. I need to outline a little further to know exactly where Part Two: Revolution will begin, but as the name suggests, war is right around the corner…


End file.
